Three Days in Paro
Tiger’s Nest, Butter Tea and Prayer Wheels
For the last three days, I have been in Paro experiencing Bhutan as most foreign tourists would. Instead of being on my own to explore each day by foot or taxi and wander into any restaurant that looks good, I have been on a tour bus with a group of other UTEP friends and a guide.
Unless you are Bhutanese or Indian or are on official state business (such as Opera Bhutan), you must pay a daily tariff of $250 per person to visit Bhutan. You also must book your travel with a tour company and be accompanied by a guide and driver.
There are perks to seeing Bhutan this way. For one thing, we have a Bhutanese guide—Dorji—with us at all times who is very knowledgeable about all things Bhutanese and can answer our many questions. He has shown us some of the highlights of Paro, plus tailored our tour to our interests and special requests.
I’m with a group of 20 people affiliated with UTEP (faculty, alumni, donors and friends), but some selected the “luxury tour” and have private drivers and are staying at a fancier hotel. I spend my days with eight others — including my husband, Scott — on the “economy tour.” We are having a blast.
The economy group includes two faculty members, a vet from Mississippi, a UTEP alumna who lives in Dallas, a lifelong friend of UTEP President Diana Natalicio, two UTEP staff members and two spouses.
We have visited at least a dozen temples (where you must take your shoes off to enter and photos are not permitted) — some built as early as the seventh century, a dzong (fortress), the National Museum, and a traditional farmhouse. We have heard monks in red robes chanting in the temples, seen buildings and paintings that are several thousand years old, spun dozens of prayer wheels, and tasted arra, the local whiskey, and butter tea, a salty, buttery tea that tastes as bad as it sounds.
We’re staying in the first hotel built in Bhutan (in 1974), which was constructed for the guests of the king’s coronation at the time. Tourism is a relatively recent part of the Bhutanese economy.
A highlight of the three days was yesterday’s hike up to the Taktshang Goemba, or Tiger’s Nest Monastery. All nine of us made it to the top, including the 70-something oldest member of the group. The hike took us from 2,600 meters (about 8,500 feet) to 3,140 meters (about 10,300 feet) and back down, including stops for tea and lunch, in about seven hours. From the trailhead, the climb seems impossible. According to legend, Guru Rinpoche flew to the site on the back of a tigress to subdue a local demon. Then, he meditated at the site for three months.
Prayer flags lined the trail, and we added some of our own at two spots along the way.
Tomorrow morning we drive to Thimphu for more sightseeing, including the performance of Acis and Galatea on Saturday afternoon in honor of the King and Queen’s second wedding anniversary. A few of us bought kira and gho for the occasion.
