Bhutan Day 1- Hike to the Tiger's Nest

4AM is NOT a normal time for a flight... but this was the time we had to fly out of Bangkok for Bhutan... 4am flight means getting to the airport at 2am... leaving the room at 1:30am. So when I dont got to bed until midnight (early night for me) a 4am flight was an interesting start to the trip.

K2! We could see it from the plane as we were getting close to Bhutan! 

We arrived into Paro, Bhutan at 6am to a nice sunny morning! So even though we had minimal sleep the night before, we collectively decided that we would take advantage of the sunny weather and hike up to the Tigers Nest!  

The Tiger's Nest is a monastery on the edge of a very very steep cliff on the top of a very high mountain!  We are the Morris family so this really should not come as much of a surprise but yes we hiked the 2.5h up to the top with only 1.5h of sleep and at a very high altitude! But we survived and wow it was stunning!

on the trail with all the prayer flags behind me

You can see the Tiger's Nest on the cliff behind us. 

The prayers on a flag. 

On our way down we stopped for tea and biscuits! (you can see the Tiger's Nest in the distance behind us! Beautiful view!)

see STEEP cliff!

We were lucky and we just happened to be in Paro during the one festival a year!  Everyone was walking around in their traditional clothing!  Made the streets very colourful!  We stopped by a market that was set up just for the festival.  It was so colourful! Both with what they were selling and with what they were wearing!

Far left is Chencho our guide. 

far left is Karma our driver and between mum and I is Chencho our guide. 

Weaving. 

After the market we drove to Timphu where we were spending our first night.  Timphu is the capital and is connected to Paro by the one highway that crosses through the centre of the country.  We also went to a zoo where we saw the Bhutanese national animal the Takin which is a very strange looking animal!