Dear fellow travelers and adventurous spirits --
The other week Phyllis was teaching at the uber-luxury hotel in Paro while I had the day off, so I decided to take another trip to Taktsang (Tiger's Nest) monastery, this time without sciatica. The weather was hot with lots of flies, so I didn't dally getting up the hill, but instead of going to the main monastery I decided to go visit some of the others, which are higher up.
Actually there are 5, and you get a lot of merit if you visit them all in one day. The first was nothing special, but the second was perched on a small promontory, filling it almost completely. That means you can sit just outside the monastery with your back against the wall and you legs dangling over the cliff edge. I was enjoying the view there when a couple of mountain goats came tearing down the hillside. I jumped up, hoping to see what spooked them. A tiger? A snow leopard? Fat chance, it was a group of people from Paro on a day off going to all 5 monasteries. They showed me the path to the third monastery, right above Taktsang , and hard to see from below. The hike was gorgeous, along the stream that forms the waterfall that faces Taktsang . Lots of wildflowers and frogs. After visiting that monastery the others planned a long lunch, and since rain was threatening I decided I would head back down, passing Taktsang, and getting only 4/5 merit. I asked them if they knew a good way down. They said they way they were going, after visiting the last monastery, was hard to find and scary, but there was another way down that involved climbing down some ladders.
They told me to be careful because a month ago a tourist fell 500 feet to her death after slipping off one of the ladders. But it was safer than the way they were planning to get back, and it was all down hill, so I decided to go for it. One of the dogs followed me down and when I got to the ladders he started to howl. I don't know if that was a warning or just because he couldn't get down the ladders, but I guessed it was the latter.
Each ladder was about 20 feet tall. Bhutanese traditional ladders don't have sturdy rungs you can hang from if your feet suddenly give way. Imagine a log cut in half longitudinally. Then with the planar side facing you, imaging carving out steps only deep enough to get about half your feet on -- not nearly deep enough to go all the way through the log. Then imagine placing this ladder on its end at an angle of about 89.99 degrees, pouring water over it, and you get the idea.
I laid down in the trail and kicked at the top ladder. It seemed pretty study. The bottom of the ladder was on a ledge about 1 meter on a side, and the next one continued down from there. It looked like an easy transition from one ladder to the next, so I started to climb down. When I got to the bottom of the first ladder, infact the transition to the second was easy, and I continued on down, with now maybe a mere 480 feet of exposure. When I got to the bottom of the second ladder I had to move right to scramble down the cliff face. From the bottom of the ladder straight backwards to the edge of the cliff there was maybe a foot of ledge remaining, so I decided to crawl under the ladder. I wondered if maybe the tourist who died had a superstition about going under a ladder. Then after maybe 50 feet of scrambling I came out onto level ground just above the stream, arriving at a beautiful temple carved into the cliff. From there it was an easy walk to Taktsang .
In the photo you can see the upper monastery at the top, and Taktsang at the bottom. This gives you some idea of the terrain where the ladders were, though that is out of view to the left.
I realize I was alone, without anyone to say, for example, "Oh, the safety line is missing/the bottom ladder is rotten, let's go back the other way." And it's always scarier going down then up, and the ladders were slippery because it had rained, and another person had just died doing what I did, and a 500 foot fall would likely be my last. But when I look back on it, in fact it was pretty easy. Had there not been so much exposure I wouldn't have thought twice. My climbing buddies would think I was pretty wimpy there at the top, with my heart pounding as much as it did. Maybe it was thinking that Phyllis might get upset if I got myself killed. In any case, I remember thinking on the way down from Taktsang how lucky I was to be going back to Phyllis -- and to the gourmet meal at the hotel.
In other breaking news, the new faculty started their orientation today. Everyone introduced herself, and I got up to say I was writing software, but in an effort to establish commonality, I was just about to say "...but in a previous life I was an economics professor". But then I realized that 'in a previous life' has a quite literal meaning here, so I phrased it differently. One of the new faculty was an economist, who told me yesterday than an economist was just someone who lacked the personality to be an accountant. I think you should come back here, Larry, and maybe together we can duke him out.
Rick Berg
The other week Phyllis was teaching at the uber-luxury hotel in Paro while I had the day off, so I decided to take another trip to Taktsang (Tiger's Nest) monastery, this time without sciatica. The weather was hot with lots of flies, so I didn't dally getting up the hill, but instead of going to the main monastery I decided to go visit some of the others, which are higher up.
Actually there are 5, and you get a lot of merit if you visit them all in one day. The first was nothing special, but the second was perched on a small promontory, filling it almost completely. That means you can sit just outside the monastery with your back against the wall and you legs dangling over the cliff edge. I was enjoying the view there when a couple of mountain goats came tearing down the hillside. I jumped up, hoping to see what spooked them. A tiger? A snow leopard? Fat chance, it was a group of people from Paro on a day off going to all 5 monasteries. They showed me the path to the third monastery, right above Taktsang , and hard to see from below. The hike was gorgeous, along the stream that forms the waterfall that faces Taktsang . Lots of wildflowers and frogs. After visiting that monastery the others planned a long lunch, and since rain was threatening I decided I would head back down, passing Taktsang, and getting only 4/5 merit. I asked them if they knew a good way down. They said they way they were going, after visiting the last monastery, was hard to find and scary, but there was another way down that involved climbing down some ladders.
They told me to be careful because a month ago a tourist fell 500 feet to her death after slipping off one of the ladders. But it was safer than the way they were planning to get back, and it was all down hill, so I decided to go for it. One of the dogs followed me down and when I got to the ladders he started to howl. I don't know if that was a warning or just because he couldn't get down the ladders, but I guessed it was the latter.
Each ladder was about 20 feet tall. Bhutanese traditional ladders don't have sturdy rungs you can hang from if your feet suddenly give way. Imagine a log cut in half longitudinally. Then with the planar side facing you, imaging carving out steps only deep enough to get about half your feet on -- not nearly deep enough to go all the way through the log. Then imagine placing this ladder on its end at an angle of about 89.99 degrees, pouring water over it, and you get the idea.
I laid down in the trail and kicked at the top ladder. It seemed pretty study. The bottom of the ladder was on a ledge about 1 meter on a side, and the next one continued down from there. It looked like an easy transition from one ladder to the next, so I started to climb down. When I got to the bottom of the first ladder, infact the transition to the second was easy, and I continued on down, with now maybe a mere 480 feet of exposure. When I got to the bottom of the second ladder I had to move right to scramble down the cliff face. From the bottom of the ladder straight backwards to the edge of the cliff there was maybe a foot of ledge remaining, so I decided to crawl under the ladder. I wondered if maybe the tourist who died had a superstition about going under a ladder. Then after maybe 50 feet of scrambling I came out onto level ground just above the stream, arriving at a beautiful temple carved into the cliff. From there it was an easy walk to Taktsang .
In the photo you can see the upper monastery at the top, and Taktsang at the bottom. This gives you some idea of the terrain where the ladders were, though that is out of view to the left.
I realize I was alone, without anyone to say, for example, "Oh, the safety line is missing/the bottom ladder is rotten, let's go back the other way." And it's always scarier going down then up, and the ladders were slippery because it had rained, and another person had just died doing what I did, and a 500 foot fall would likely be my last. But when I look back on it, in fact it was pretty easy. Had there not been so much exposure I wouldn't have thought twice. My climbing buddies would think I was pretty wimpy there at the top, with my heart pounding as much as it did. Maybe it was thinking that Phyllis might get upset if I got myself killed. In any case, I remember thinking on the way down from Taktsang how lucky I was to be going back to Phyllis -- and to the gourmet meal at the hotel.
In other breaking news, the new faculty started their orientation today. Everyone introduced herself, and I got up to say I was writing software, but in an effort to establish commonality, I was just about to say "...but in a previous life I was an economics professor". But then I realized that 'in a previous life' has a quite literal meaning here, so I phrased it differently. One of the new faculty was an economist, who told me yesterday than an economist was just someone who lacked the personality to be an accountant. I think you should come back here, Larry, and maybe together we can duke him out.
Rick Berg
