So I’ve completely skipped several counties and many parts of Bhutan to arrive here. I’m a bit disappointed in myself. I promised myself that I would finish blogging/ photo editing my trip by the 1 year anniversary. Today, Feb 11th, is one year after I returned from my journey. Clearly, I’ve fallen short.

It’s been strange transitioning back to life at home but I really can’t explain what it is that is off. Something’s just not right and that makes it hard to stay motivated. Anyway, it’s time to get off the whambulance and finish what I started. But, I’m throwing all organization out the window (not that there was much to begin with) and I’ve decided to share specific memories rather than ramble on about everything I did.

A few months back, on an awesome friend’s recommendation, I decided to take a crazy chance and apply to be the person that travels to the New York Times 52 Places to Travel in 2018. I know…obviously, I wasn’t selected…haha…there was little chance of that happening. But, for the application, I had to write about one of my favorite memories, so here it is. This one’s dedicated to my oldest and newest BFFs 🙂 – the same dorks that helped create this memory.

Haa Valley, Bhutan

September 4th – September 5th, 2016

In the lush Haa Valley of Bhutan, in a small but ornate guesthouse, my two dear friends and I found a hand-written guide book left behind by a previous visitor.  It highly recommended a visit to the Bjungneydra temple, nestled into the mountain behind the guesthouse.

On a pleasantly cool morning, our tour guide, Jhatso, guided us onto an ‘easy’ short-cut he used when he was a child to get to Bjungneydra temple. As we progressed along a narrowing path that got ever closer to the cliff edge, Jhatso slowed his pace and kept looking back with little beads of sweat on his forehead. A little further and even closer to the edge, he stopped us and gave us the option to quit. We tried telepathy to reach a decision. That failed, so we mumbled “well, what do you want to do” a few times and then agreed to continue. It’s possible that some of us were more enthused about this trek than others. Soon after that decision point, we reached the part of the trek where the ground disappeared – this might have been what Jhatso was nervous about. Heart rates might have elevated a bit and I think the temperature rose suddenly – the jackets came off. As the person right behind Jhatso, my goal was to show no fear as I was probably the most enthused about the climb across the face of a cliff with no safety measures. With coaxing from the guide and our driver, we all leapt across the gap in the earth and made it to the other side unscathed. For our next death-defying feat, we crab-walked down a blind cliff edge while holding onto the thin, prickly grass. Yes, we did think the grass would somehow keep us from tumbling to our deaths. Then there was the rope that we used to scale a boulder to finally reach the temple. We arrived alive and joyfully spun prayer wheels to thank whoever was watching over us. All that was left to do was to crawl blindly through a small cave to the simplest little wooden box of a temple to ever be carved into a mountain. The long-haired caretaker, that went months without speaking to anyone, educated us about the temple. Pointing to the innumerable ‘treasures’ within stone wall of the temple, he guided us through the journey of Guru Rinpoche and his consort. With reverence, he touched a crevice that represented the footprint of the consort and we followed his lead so that we too could extract good fortune from the cool stone wall. We watched in silent awe as our guide and driver both prostrated themselves in front of Buddha, the first time in 8 days and after numerous temple tours. Christian, Hindu, and Muslim – we all felt a kind of weightlessness in this unobtrusive, unembellished Buddhist temple that you won’t find in Lonely Planet. Many people go to Bhutan with the goal of climbing up to Tiger’s Nest – we did that and enjoyed it, but this experience truly brought Bhutan to life.

Pictures of the climb…here