Bumdra Hike, Day 1

One of the things I've always wanted to do while being in Bhutan is hike to Bumdra and camp out over night, 1000meters above Tiger's Nest.  I've been told how beautiful the sunrise over the Himalayas is and how special of a place the area is.  I was very fortunate enough to have been asked by a group of guests I was working with, to go up there camp out and more importantly... teach yoga in the morning. I met the group at a buddhist monk college below and together we started the journey up to the top.  A few hours in, we stopped for lunch near the ruins of an old temple, at least it looked like ruins. Our guides and crew setting up a lovely picnic. Afterwards we progressed on through forests of different qualities and fauna till reaching our base camp for the evening in a yak valley just beneath the Bumdra Monastery.  I decided to hike up a little further to a sky burial site, but no one cared to join as they were too tired from the walk.  It's amazing how thin the air gets above 4,000meters and each step had my lungs wheezing for precious oxygen. Tiring but very worth the struggle up, especially when finding this special little meditation cave and seeing the spot where sky burials are performed.  I've always wanted to see a sky burial, but never had the chance so seeing the pit was impressive enough for me.  A storm looked to be approaching and I didn't want to be stuck up top for long so I made my way back down to camp. Lucky for us, no storm came and we had a beautiful night full of good food, good laughs and great stories.