WE STAYED WITH MONKS IN BHUTAN (a touching story)

It's a beautiful thing to know the kind of life they might have had before and to see how happy they are here. Today I was very excited. We are Karen Nate. We have been traveling non-stop for the last four years. We are currently exploring our 98th country, Bhutan. You can't visit this country without a tour guide, so luckily we have a really great one for the sheet called Stay Long. If you missed our last video, he invited us to spend a couple of days. his family in his town where he grew up and today we have been given another incredible opportunity.

We are currently in the capital city of Tempo and somewhere up in these mountains around me is the remote monastery where we will spend the night. Also, this statue behind me is one of the largest seated Buddhas in the world, so as a fun fact, Bhutan does not have a single traffic light in the entire country, instead it has a traffic policeman who stops at the intersection and waves to people to pass, apparently they tried. Traffic light once and everyone hated it so they just took it out so we're standing at the biggest intersection in the nation's capital city and there's a man in the direction of traffic, Marty, out of breath, so we've driven a few 20 minutes outside the city and that is the farthest the car could take us because the only way to get to this monastery is to practically walk three hours up a mountain, we are at elevations, we have only been walking for about five minutes and Ya we have come out of all our layers, well I am a lawyer, how hard am I breathing, so we start this hike around 2500 meters and by the time we reach the monastery we will be at 3,400, we also learned that there are bears and Bengal tigers in these forests.

We called to see why there is no science. They don't eat us. There are chances that we come across animals, so to get rid of them we do something like this. Go away. Tigers, go away, bears. In fact, I would love to see a tiger. We were just seeing our house for the first time at night. We still have a long way to go. He is one of the workers who is renovating the temple, so he will return to his house. Bring his thoughts into the site. It's crazy to me. The only way to get here is by walking.

We gained about hours. 45 minutes later, almost 1,000 vertical meters, we have arrived at the monastery. I can already tell it will be worth it. It is so beautiful we have amazing views of the capital city of Tempo where we started this morning, the mountains cast a shadow over the city, we have made it high enough so that we can glimpse the snow capped peaks in the distance good morning your English is very well the fire is very warm thanks for the firewood some tea with butter I feel very welcome in your house your noses are in the cold even other

monks

are still one hundred percent little children just like wild little children running around do it Please, mother, it's Joey, are you going to take us to our rooms?

Yes thank you the guest room this is where we will sleep tonight and there is no one else here so we have everything to ourselves there are five beds in here and we can sleep wherever we want there are plenty of pillows and blankets there is a heater which I don't know if we would have and a little tea and a kettle of hot water is very cozy and before it gets dark The monk is going to give us a tour of the rest of the monastery a long time ago, it used to be that people wanted to put their only son in a monastery, it was so difficult to get a chance to become a monk in a monastery, but this time when modernization came in Bhutan and everyone wants their own children to become doctors or engineers or architects and they also want their children to study if they can , so they want to send their children to another country.

So now the monastery has become an orphanage, you know, at some point 95% of the children are

monks

, they are from a very bad background and then from a very poor family. The more I do for the children, the more hippy I feel, so this is not the only monastery. that welcomes children who have poor families or a bad home life, but apparently the head monk told us that this monastery is special and different because many times the children and the monastery are afraid and a little afraid of the elders and they do not want to spoil , but here they really make sure that the children feel at home, welcome and free to run around and you can see how happy they are and I mean they are just like any other child, it's a beautiful thing to know that knowing the kind of life they could have had before and seeing how happy they are here, I got very emotional today, so again, what do you do with dr. tied snow apparently this monastery was about to collapse there are only four or five monks who lived here and then when you heard about the problem, that's when he decided seven years ago that he wanted to come here and try to revive it and now look at him.

There are people everywhere yes, but it's not easy to live with the head monk, he's probably too humble and wouldn't want me to say this, but he's an amazing guy, not only did he save this monastery from extinction, but now it's an orphanage. . take care of 80 kids it's like a combination between billiards and air hockey there's like a bigger puck and then I think you use it to try to shoot all the little ones in the corner pocket the boys will be boys quick tour of the bathroom this little bathroom It was just right in the corner of the guest house there seems to be three stalls I brought some hand sanitizer no big deal let's check the bathroom I wasn't expecting this one whose remote monastery must be the shower room the light doesn't turn on but it is just a giant bucket of water with a faucet we're having dinner in the guest room which we actually just found out used to be the horse room looks like we have rice some eggs with some onions and what is this this is potato no I think let's go to be cold tonight, it's five layers of blankets, we're going to sleep very well, you know, and you have a weight on you, how it helps you relax like a baby in the womb.

Okay, good night everyone. It's a little test of strength. and it has to be 20 degrees out here, that's a monk's wake-up call every morning at 6am. one of the monks sounds that Bell likes everyone awake it's time to pray to him because he didn't want to get out of bed this morning but I'm really glad he did so I had another monk so he normally has breakfast they were enough kind enough to cook us some rice this morning and now we continue our walk to the top of the mountain, we will reach 3,600 meters. Party, yes, good way to the hike, if you can't tell, we have a couple of guides for the day and they are pacing you quickly.

You're still alive? A 13-year-old boy does it at lightning speed. We didn't even make it. a high power, this stupa works on the top of the mountain, although behind us it is high, so how do we do where we reduce? No, you're very kind. They asked us if it was the first time we were walking, if that shows how to get out breathing and slow and I was this girl who walked all the way with us, she deserves a scratch on the back, so we returned to the monastery just in time for the Lunch, we'll have rice, green beans and eggs, and we'll be done with this. video here, but before we do we want to say a huge thank you to all the monks we've had here who have experienced a day in their lives and a very special thanks to the head monk for being one of the most inspiring. men I've met, so ever since I've been in Bhutan we've been drinking this unique tea called courtesan tea.

It starts with a butterfly releasing larvae into the ground, then it turns into a caterpillar, and then a fungus comes and uses it. takes it as a host and takes it completely and turns into a fungus that only grows above 4,000 feet in the Himalayas, so essentially we're drinking tea that comes from a fungus that grew from the head of the caterpillar, apparently it has a lots of health benefits and it's quite delicious chuck's ah it's altitude form snezhana how are you doing? yeah good so far so good high school I'm used to but Carrie has a problem with the altitude but he's fit we'll make it I'm glad he thinks I'm fit it's a combination of the altitude Momo I'm crying because these dogs were very good until now, do you think we were slow?

No, oh, you're too kind, we were too slow.