How Camping Made Me Spiritual?

It was 8pm when I received call from my friend Kinley, he told me that all his friends have canceled his plan to camp near `Phajoding Monastary`.With a bit of a sad tone he explained me all the expectations and hope he had for the trip. I already had experience for hiking in high altitude places, also had the required equipment and I knew it was late. But I agreed to go with him, thinking it will be a fun experience again “ Once more unto the breach, dear friend”.

We started our journey at exactly 7am in the morning with nothing but warm tea and biscuits in my tummy that, we had talking about how both our lives had been before this day. Now I am not going to lie to you, hiking can be exhausting specially if you are not used to much exercise and hiking. My friend Kinley had a hard time pulling himself up. We took it within his own pace and before we knew it we saw the Monasteries with clarity. It was very beautiful, the view itself was worth the hike and a monk came up to us as we approached one of the starting Monastery.

“I am sorry but the monasteries are in the state of reconstruction. We are closed for few months”, the news was a needle to our hearts. We both took a deep breath not knowing what to do next, the monk offered us some refreshment as we both sat down on a tipsy bench made of nothing but wood. I looked at Kinley, his face was all down to the starting point. Regretting the decision of every thought he had of camping.

I sipped my last liquid of tea and stood up from the bench, took deep breath.“Hello!” I shouted till my lungs gave out. I asked Kinley to join me and we both shouted for our voices to be heard from below. Sometimes when life and things don´t go your ways, the emotion of frustration and grief is bottled inside us, to be used for something else negatively. I wanted Kinley to take out that emotion in a form of yelling.

“Well lets go back now, I think I carry a bad omen today,” said Kinley. Picking up his bad from the ground. I disagreed with him and said there is another Monastery if we head up. Thuji Dra happens to be just 30 minutes up from Phajoding, the hike is a bit harder but I remembered one of my friend saying that they have a guest room for travelers to stay. I assumed that the room was empty because other people knew about reconstruction. I took my bet and we both hiked another 30 minutes up, the view was amazing, we thought Phajoding´s view was great but Thuji Dra´s was something else.

Luckily there was no one there but a humble monk taking care of the monastery all by himself, he told the guest room is free to use and that he wasn´t expecting guest. We both smiled a bit when we heard the guest room was free, it was already noon and was about to hit 1pm. While talking with the monk and having some refreshments, we gained an information that there are 18 lakes if you head up from Thuji Dra. He told us that we can visit 8 lakes within 3 hours and come back before dusk sets, Kinley and I were a bit excited to discover something new. We decided to head for the lake and stay one night at Thuji Dra.

The roads weren´t so clear but the dogs who followed us expecting food seemed to be useful for showing us the way. They were out nature´s guide, stopping each time we took a rest and barking if they sensed danger. When we reached the final 8^th lake called ´DungSto` it was breathtaking and so majestic at the same time, I could see Kinley feeling glad that we planned to do this. We had some snacks near the lake and just closed our eyes for a few seconds to feel the wind following the sun.

When we got back, at the peak of mountain we witnessed the incredible beauty of sun setting, the dusk was truly something to behold when coming down.

The next morning when preparing to leave, the humble monk told us there is a painting of the Buddha on a huge boulder in middle of the road between Thuji Dra and Phajoding. It seems we missed it while coming up but we were determined to witness it before we leave. We kept our eyes wide open as possible, looked everywhere but we could not see this boulder that the monk had mentioned to us. From a peak of a big rock we decided to have a search, but we could not see it. It was hidden like a treasure of black beard. We saw a man from below he looked like a local villager, Kinley shouted asking any information on the mysterious painting.

“Well you are standing on top of it,” he replied. We both were shocked, Often people look for something too hard, when the thing they are searching for is just near them. We immediately came down from the boulder and there it was the beautiful painting of the Buddha. We asked ourselves how could we have missed it? We shared some laughs because of our Stupidity.

The monk had told us that the faded painting of the Buddha is naturally formed by the process of weathering.

After we reached Thimphu it was quite a journey that we both kept in our hearts.