There are countries you visit, and then there are countries that visit you back — quietly, deeply, in ways you do not fully understand until you are home again and find yourself thinking about them in the middle of an ordinary day. Bhutan is very much the latter. known as the Kingdom of Bhutan, this small and extraordinary nation sits nestled in the folds of the eastern Himalayas, cradled between China to the north and India to the south.
Paro Taktsang — the Tiger’s Nest Monastery — one of those places that genuinely defies description and yet demands the attempt. Clinging impossibly to the sheer face of a cliff 900 metres above the forested floor of the Paro Valley, this sacred monastery complex was, according to legend, established in the 8th century by the great Buddhist master Guru Rinpoche,
the few places left on Earth where you feel, almost immediately upon arrival, that something is different here. That the relationship between people and land, between tradition and progress, between the individual and the community, has been thought about carefully and protected fiercely.
Because the mountains are extraordinary, the monasteries are breathtaking, the trekking is world-class, and the culture is unlike anything you have encountered before.
But mostly — because Bhutan asks you, simply by being what it is, to slow down and consider what you are really looking for. And in that question, quietly and without fanfare, it tends to offer something close to an answer.
