Pilgrimage to Paro Taktsang

Part: I

June 1, 2011

It is 30th today of Bhutanese calendar, regarded as Sabbath. As preplanned, we prepare to leave for Paro Taktsang (Tiger Den), which is regarded as the most significant among other Guru’s holy sites mostly on the rocky precipices: Ugyen Dhak, Dhak Karpo, etc. It attracts tourists and devotees from India and abroad but mostly local pious ones.

The familiar narrow asphalt road alongside the river on one side and the fertile fields on the other and then the turn from the main road at Satsam Chorten along the non-asphalt road. Just off ahead the turn the two storeys building with corrugated iron roof, the small apple garden protected by the waist high stone-walled fence (the round white stones from the riverside below) alongside the bumpy road, the apple trees bearing small apples like their buds, the pine trees on the opposite side: so familiar as of my staying here twice (in 1995 and 2002) when my sister Yangzom stayed here in the building in her single room on rent with the shared bathroom and kitchen, when she had her job at Yangphel Handicrafts.

The green painted iron bridge over the river is yet robust as said built by Janpanese. It’s adorned with cloth-made muti-colored wind-flags, the mantras and auspicious signs printed on the pieces of cheap loosely woven rectangular cloth for good fortune and success, strung stretched along either side from one end to another. Those weathered ones dangle below the newer ones flying above on tighter strings. It connects to the tiny hamlet with sparse households on the other side of the river.

Taken by Choedon from the halfway point

Not like in 1995, when Gen La on a hired horse led by the village lad but only up along the jagged rutted path, there is now road up to the certain point amid freshly wetted lush green pines bearing tawny new cones. Tourism must have prompted the same. It’s really pleasing to drive past the sparse households with walled apple gardens around and enter the pine-greenery. The point, the cleared opening with some wooden shacks on one side, where a vehicle has to be parked and start on foot. And just ahead the wider opening with lush green turf dotted with left unmaintained apple trees and a few horses nibbling at turf-naps. From the trace of a left household I wonder what forced them to leave such lovely place surrounded by the grandeur of coniferous forest and the magnificent view of Taktsang on the waistline of the towering precipice. But more precarious seems to be the lonely temple perched on the other rocky hill-top overlooking Taktsang. And only later I’m going to learn this hill-top isn't higher than the next by on whose waistline Taktsang is but it overlooks Taktsang below like surprisingly landed on a miraculous ledge.

We take some pictures from here with Taktsang at the backdrop. There are those saddled horses for hire. As we advance forward with those noisy Indian tourists the melodious chirrups coming from the thickets of pines around are like welcoming notes.

A group of Indian tourists as our companies to Taktsang. From the elder guy I learn they are from Mumbai but they belong to Kerala, but the other lady says she is from Goa. The guy says going for such site is experiencing and there are such sites in Kerala. A cute girl, bright complexion in dark trousers and shirt, with her seemingly dad says ‘hi’ to me and I greet back in the same way as we toil up along the winding rutted path replete with dried leaves of the thorny bushes with thorn-brimmed leaves. It was as of the recent rains that have washed them all along the deepened ruts. But the thick-waisted bespectacled young Indian in his early twenties, who is in tight dark jeans and synthetic black T-shirt accentuating his bulging waistline, suffers more as he is the last one leaving behind whiffs of his body odour. He hasn’t got anything to carry but he can’t make more than a few steps and rests gasping, his fatigued eyes seemingly lifeless through the white narrow glasses now burden rather than a part of his fashion taste.

Burning my fresh energy fuel in such crude fast-paced steps rather than in a saving firm-paced ones, I now feel struggling against troubling thin breaths after covering the initial distance that leaves them behind so. Choedon is off ahead disappeared from my sight. I now find how my concern for her is a huge misconception.

Being unable to make more than a few steps ahead at a time, I let Karchung and sister overtake me that saves me a lot, especially for my sister’s carrying the only thing I have, the woven basket of flattened plastic reeds with the edible stuffs inside. I find their paces are experienced slow ones.

The cute Indian girl and her dad are ahead of us, when my sister finds sunglasses dropped behind them and tells to me ask for them. As I pick up the glasses and do the same with ‘excuse me’, the guy, her dad, takes a few steps down to take it saying ‘thanks’. Then we manage to overtake them. From this point I try to be at Karchung and sister’s heels. I find those green painted Use Me trashbins made out of oil-containers dotted along the turns and there are dug pits for the same; thanks for those drinking water-posts with protruding taps above overflowing wooden troughs.

As I am toiling behind them but see them off ahead, I find a Bhutanese guy in dark Goe appears abruptly behind me from a shortcut and he crosses the proper route to try up along another shortcut. The sleeves of his Goe wrapped around his waist revealing his underwear, a white T-shirt. His funky hairstyle gelled wet, maintained cluster of beard below his chin, the sunglasses on his bright face speak some of his taste in vanity. But I can’t have a close look at him. He is on a call with his cell phone and looks at ease not like me fighting with breaths. And I am going to learn later he is usual commuter, the experienced one, the tourist guide now of those Indians left far behind him. It must be him shouting at those Indian tourists down there at the parking point, “Start walking!”

As I reach the flat point with the drinking water-post, the shrine with a large painted prayer-wheel, I find him sitting on a bench. As I walk past him ahead, I hear him saying ‘halfway’ to those Indians reaching the point. It leads to a tourist reception of the sort. From here we leave them behind. I’m going to see them only at Taktsang while standing on the steps to butter-lamps offering cell after visiting the Guru’s prime shrines. I see now the Bhutanese guy in dark Goe, their guide, has befriended his clients well from the way how he chats with the cute Indian girl. “I would carry you over there”, he says as she must have pointed out there, the overrunning beauty of coniferous splendour on the slopes of the yonder hills and below the rocky precipices. “Oh, it can’t be easy”, she says laughingly. And I can’t overhear anymore.

Then at last at the point at the edge of the semi-rocky slope, like at the knee-line of the hill, almost level opposite with Taktsang perched on the rocky ledge on the other side and the winding crude slab-steps down with iron and concrete hand rials on concrete posts up to the angle of the rocky walls. The lovely fall coursing down the dark slippery walls, the drizzles can be felt when crossing the small concrete bridge. Up from the point there the current of this fall can be heard like background music to the chill of the site. And it’s to take the same steps upward till the proper entrance of the imposing holy site. But before hitting the steps up we take some time here taking some pictures or enjoying the views around.