You ever have one of those workouts where you swear your body will be revamped when you get home? Welcome to my world. Yesterday we climbed into the mountains, 10,000 feet (all uphill, by the way), to the Tiger’s Nest.

Any guilt I’ve ever felt from any time I’ve ever stepped off of the treadmill early (or from every piece of naan I’ve eaten over the last 3 weeks) has now been absolved.

The Tiger’s Nest, or Taktsang, is a viewpoint built around a cave in which a very famous Buddhist spiritual guru (Guru Padmasambhava) meditated. It holds a monastery that sits impossibly on the top of a cliff of rock at 914 m above the bottom of the valley. The hike was nothing short of absolutely, positively exhilarating.

Naturally, the extremely steep climb is rewarding with amazing, picturesque views every few minutes, because you’re significantly higher than the last time you looked. (Note: though I’ve attached a few here, they don’t hold a candle to the real thing). We passed small blankets where women and children all sold jewelry and housewares, and stopped for refueling (tea and biscuits) along the way. I even happened to meet the country’s finance minister, who was taking a stroll to the top!

Just to give you an idea of how important this place is, it was built in the centuries ago and amazingly, it was recently rebuilt completely — exactly as it had been before — in five years’ time after being destroyed by a fire in 1998. You could say that Buddhists take their spiritual sites very seriously. Because of the delicate placement (i.e. on a cliff), workers had to painstakingly reconstruct the building using cable wires that ran down the mountain, carrying people and materials. It really is something otherworldly to be in a holy site this revered, this protected and this hard to reach. I don’t consider myself to be a Buddhist at this point, but as someone who does try to observe many of its practices, it is my very first pseudo-pilgrimage. *smile*

It is, further, a fantastic way to end a few days here — a perfect package of culture, history, beauty, nature, community and solitude — all things that exemplify this country. While neither my travel schedule nor my travel budget permit me to stay for much longer, even 4 brisk days here has been truly wonderful, as in actually filled with wonder.

To me, Bhutan is a carefully preserved, majestic kingdom, and interesting to watch as it balances cultural observation with modern influence. It manages to instill this sense of curiosity about how much more there is to do, but also a quiet calm that encourages reflection and stillness. As tourism grows and the world begins to watch, I’m thrilled to have had a look into this unique, mysterious place early on.

Woman Chewing Beetlenut