Bhutan Tiger Nest ABHIYAN

Bhutan Tiger Nest ABHIYAN

May be the excitement of accomplishment overshadowed the pain even for our child who completed one of the most difficult hiking adventures we have done so far! Though we made him ride a mule till the cafeteria (half way journey) but still to do the rest part of the journey was also quite challenging for a 6 yrs. old kid.

Those who have been to Taksang Moanstery or Tiger Nest Paro in Bhutan, I am sure are aware of how breathtakingly beautiful the entire hiking trail is!

Also I strongly felt that you can't enter the main temple without the acceptance of the Supreme Power, you may call it God or Nature because we saw most of the people giving up after reaching the cafeteria. My husband's entry was denied too as he was wearing a T Shirt and in a Buddhist Temple your arms and legs need to be covered completely. However a solo traveller from New Zealand who was using the locker before us (there are few lockers to keep your stuff as you can not enter the main temple with camera etc.) made us aware of this and happily lent his full sleeve sweatshirt. And then again something happened which we were not prepared for! The weather all of a sudden started getting bad. We hurries and as soon as we stepped on the first staircase (the final set of stairs that leads to the main temple & GUMPHA) one of the guarding monks showed us hand that TIME IS UP as the clock by then had struck 1 and that meant that we needed to wait for another 1 hour in that poor weather condition with our kid. I was almost in tears and people behind us started talking amongst themselves that NO POINT WAITING ANY MORE, LETS GET BACK. My husband was about to ask me to leave but suddenly I got to see two monks talking to each other in Bhutanese and then they allowed us only us to go ahead. I was completely perplexed but one of them made us understand that he had noticed that our feet were already on the 1st stairs by the time it was 1 so they decided to let us go. It took me few seconds to get over the whole thing that was going inside my brain which is something I can't describe in words but yes we went ahead with so much pride & joy as if we won something. It took us 5 hours to reach and 3 hours to come down. Our child was waiting patiently inside the temple with the monks as it had started raining while we two went inside the cave or GUMPHA. By the time we came out the sky was clear and bright!

To me this journey will always be a memorable one and I will always call it an ABHIYAN or an adventurous expedition. And as I say motherhood has never made me weak rather stronger every moment; I have not given up my dreams to explore the world and have always tried to make my child to be a part of my journeys no matter how difficult it has been as I believe with every walk with nature and mother a child learns a lot and gets enrichment. And with this very thought inspired by Tagore I wish a very happy Rabindra Jayanti and a mother's day to every reader of this community.

Sumitra D Ghosh, 10.05.2022