The foot of the path
From here, you walk.
Pines, red dust, and the cool of the night still in the shade. The monastery is somewhere above you, and nothing with wheels goes any nearer.
This page is climbed. Scroll up.
Some of what you find on the way up can be kept for your plan.
On the trail to the Tiger's Nest, Paro
Higher
The wind gets here first.
The trees thin and the valley opens behind you, further down than you expected. Flags run from pine to pine, worn pale by the weather. You hear them before you see them.
Prayer flags above the Paro valley
Into the cloud
There. Then not.
Somebody stops and points. A white wall and a line of gold, high on the cliff, and a good deal further off than you had hoped. Then the cloud closes over it, and you go on climbing towards where it was.
Paro Taktsang in cloud
Across the gorge
Now sit down.
The path comes out on a ledge and the whole of it is level with you: roofs, windows, a cliff that should not hold a building at all. You have earned a seat.
Nothing to do now but look. Stay as long as you like.
Paro Taktsang from the trail
When would you come?
Spring or autumn. Choose a month and see what it brings.