17. november

Another long trip today! November 17.th is a holyday in Bhutan, so today was a day off and Carsten had arranged for Lasse and I to go and see Paro valley, which is extremely beautiful. When he came to pick us up in the morning with a car, a driver and a guide called Yadop, he gave us a choice: either we could take a trip in the car around the valley or we could go to the most special place in Bhutan called Tiger's Nest, which is a monastery hanging on the cliff very high up a mountain. Of course we wanted to do the latter! Carsten told us it was a hard trip and that we would have to climb the cliff for 1,5 hours on foot but hey… we are young and full of energy! And off we went with driver and guide.
We stopped on the way to buy some water and chocolate for the climb and Yadop looked at us and said: "I am a little bit worried about the two of you hiking that high. Normally we go earlier in the morning - it might get hot at this hour." But we were confident we could make it so we continued to the parking lot where we should leave the car and walk on foot for a couple of hours.
We were at an altitude of 2800 meters (9187 feet) and were supposed to climb up to an altitude of 3800 meters (12.967 feet). I looked up the cliff and started to doubt my ability to get up that high but continued for about 5 minutes. The thin air made breathing difficult and my heart started beating hard and I was getting warm all over. Then I decided to chicken out (even though I felt it was very embarrassing). Lasse was very kind and offered to go somewhere else together instead - and I was very grateful!

So we went for lunch at a very nice place with good Bhutanese food and together with Yadop we planned to DRIVE to the top of a mountain - 4000 meters (13.124 feet) high - and see everything from the car. We got a lot of information from Yadop and he was a really nice guide, very well informed, smiling and laughing and very interested in other cultures as well.

We went for a 2 hours drive to the top of world - or so it felt and on the way up we saw Paro airport from high up. It was amazing to look at a plane coming in between the high mountains and landing on the short runway - but he succeeded - as they always do (so far ;-))

When we reached the top it was COLD - freezing - and it started to snow while we went for a short walk to see the view and a lot of prayer flags. The Bhutanese people hang the prayer flags on top of the mountains so the wind can carry the prayers written on the flags for peace and happiness all around the world. A very nice thought. From the top we could see the even higher mountains far away and it was a sight that made me feel very small and humble. The peace and quietness on the top was very, very special and difficult to describe in words.

Then we drove down the mountain back to Thimphu and Carsten had made reservations for the 3 of us to eat at a very fancy hotel, Taj Tashi. The food was excellent. I had some rice with vegetables and fresh fruits for dessert - mmmm!