The sun came out today! It was a glorious morning and the planes were flying. Phew. A 35 minute flight versus an eight our bumpy, windy drive. And we didn’t have to get up for a 630 am flight).

We checked in at the airport at 10 am, and had to be physically weighed. That is us, not the bags!

it was an easy flight with many photos taken. I really enjoyed seeing the Himalayans peaking above the clouds.

After our lunch at the lodge (greeted with the banging of cymbals and a blue scarfs) they took us to our huge, huge one bedroom villa. Wow.

We were scheduled to leave to visit the famous Tiger’s Nest at 530 am the following day but as we had sunshine today we decided to visit this afternoon (plus this eliminates the need to get up early tomorrow!).

It’s a 45 minute drive to base of Tiger’s Nest.

We were excited to visit the nest but we are aware it’s more views from the outside rather than the inside that are most important. And with both of our knees complaining while hiking yesterday, we decided to take the ponies up to the mid point for great photos.

Guru Padmasambhava, popularly known as Guru Rinpoche visited and sanctified Bhutan in the 8th century when evil spirits abounded and harmed people.

Legend has it that Guru Rinpoche flew to this site on a tigress’ back to subdue a local demon. Thereafter, he meditated here for three months.

Taktshang Goemba or Tiger’s Nest Monastery was blessed and sanctified as one of Bhutan’s most sacred religious sites. It hangs on a cliff and stands above a beautiful forest of blue pine and rhododendrons.

The monastery is located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the north of Paro and hangs on a precarious cliff at 3,120 metres (10,240 ft), about 900 metres (3,000 ft) above the Paro valley, on the right side of the Paro Chu ('chu' in Bhutanese means "river or water"). The rock slopes run nearly vertical and the monastery buildings are built into the rock face.

During the 4th Druk Desi Tenzin Rabgye (1638–96), the first, and only successor of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (Zhabs-drung Ngag-dbang rNam-rgyal), "a distant cousin from a collateral line descending from the 15th century ‘crazy saint’ Drukpa Kunley". During his visit to the sacred cave of Taktsang Pel Phuk during the Tshechu season of 1692 he laid the foundation for building the temple dedicated to Guru Rinpoche called the ‘Temple of the Guru with Eight Names’.

The monastery buildings consist of four main temples and residential shelters ideally designed by adapting to the rock (granite) ledges, the caves and the rocky terrain. Out of the eight caves, four are comparatively easy to access. The cave where Padmasmabhava first entered, riding the Tiger, is known as 'Tholu Phuk' and the original cave where he resided and did meditation is known as the 'Pel Phuk'.

It has been expanded and rebuilt several times including after a fire in 1998.

The trek to the monastery is a climb through a series of steep and winding paths, which can take around two to three hours to complete.The high altitude means that the air is thinner, making the hike more strenuous.

This was definitely true even for the pony guides, even 16 year old Gen. The ponies and the humans stopped every few minutes to catch their breathes. As it was afternoon more people were coming down than up and they looked very tired.

We loved sitting and staring at the temple and thinking about the difficulty and determination to build this temple in such a remote and inaccessible location.

It took us about 45 minutes to walk down the mostly manageable trail to the bottom.

Back at the lodge I was given a complimentary foot massage (though I wasn’t sure I deserved it) while David has another proper massage.

Later we had dinner in our villa on our huge dining room table in front of a roaring fire.

Life is good.

PS. For those who wonder about the last photo posted from today—- yes, I used photoshop.