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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Bhutan: The Himalayan Kingdom part9


Performance of a band of folk Bhutanese dances to the accompaniment of the small unknown instrument. 

















And this is the most beautiful and famous monastery of Bhutan, Tiger's Nest Monastery - a place which every Buddhist pilgrim dreams to visit at least once in a lifetime.

The monastery is literally hung on a rock at an altitude of 3100 m. To get there one should walk more than 700 m on foot as there is no roadway to it. The monastery is at the very top of the photo.

The path is extremely steep but for pilgrims' convenience all the difficult parts of the road have stairs.

Souvenirs are actively sold on the sides of the road.



On a half way to the monastery there is a restaurant where pilgrims can have a snack and drink a cup of tea.



A strange sculpture stands in the kitchen.


View from the observation platform.



To get to the monastery one should climb the left cliff, then walk down to the cleft and walk up again to the monastery.

If you are not very interested in it, then you'd better stay on this cliff - to reach this place is not very difficult but you will have a splendid view on the monastery.



As for the descend to the cleft and climbing to the monastery, it's unbelievably difficult. One has to climb the vertical wall.





There is a bridge at the very bottom of the cleft.


The waterfall making some noise is not far from it.

A small terrace right before the entrance.

Here all the cameras and bags are taken away.

The legend has it that the monastery was founded in the 8th century by Padmasambhav himself (a founder of Tibetan Buddhism), who transferred here sitting on a tiger. The most famous Buddhist teachers and kings mediated here as well. This place is considered to have a special atmosphere. 

via sergeydolya

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