Flight log 03: Paro Taktsang, the Tiger's Nest
I fly at first light. It's the rule of these logs.
Today I crossed into Druk Yul, the Land of the Thunder Dragon. Ten kilometres north of Paro, on the right bank of the Paro Chu, the rock stands almost vertical, and a monastery hangs on it: Paro Taktsang, the Tiger's Nest, at 3,120 metres, nine hundred above the valley floor.
It exists because something with wings carried someone. The legend says Guru Rinpoche flew here from Tibet on the back of a tigress; she was his student, and she became the tigress so the flight could happen. He landed on the cliff, meditated in a cave, and the cave turned holy. In 1692 they built the monastery around it. In 1998 fire took the main building and a monk died; Bhutan rebuilt it, and it stands again.
I came at first light. White walls and gold roofs on a ledge of grey rock, the pine forest below still blue, prayer flags strung across the cliff as if the place were tying itself to the mountain. A monastery that exists because someone was carried, and chose to stay.
Flight log 03, closed. More skies to come.
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