Prince William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, pose halfway up the trail leading to a Buddhist monastery referred to as the “Tiger’s Nest” on their two-day visit to Bhutan on Friday. (Photo: AFP)
Prince William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, pose halfway up the trail leading to a Buddhist monastery referred to as the “Tiger’s Nest” on their two-day visit to Bhutan on Friday. (Photo: AFP)
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge trekked on Friday to a Buddhist monastery on a mountainside in Bhutan, going one better than the duke’s father, Prince Charles, who on a 1998 trip broke off his hike to paint a watercolour.
Prince William and wife Kate dressed down for the three-hour expedition to the so-called Tiger’s Nest that is perched on a mountainside at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet).
They listened to a guide tell the history and legends surrounding Buddhism’s most sacred monastery complex in Bhutan, built in 1692. According to one legend, an 8th-century Buddhist master flew to the site on the back of a tigress and subdued a local demon before staying three months to meditate.
It normally takes locals more than two hours to make the steep climb, but the royal couple — climbing hand-in-hand — were a bit faster. “The royal couple climbed very fast,” Bhutan’s information secretary Kinley Dorji said. Halfway up, the prince told reporters the view was “absolutely stunning.”
Horses were kept at the ready in case the royals became tired, but they did not use them. William’s father Prince Charles undertook the same trek in 1998 but only made it halfway because of a polo injury, stopping en route to paint a watercolour of the monastery.
Kate’s outfit featured knee-length boots, olive trousers and a leather waistcoat, while William wore an open-necked shirt and beige slacks.
The couple stopped along the way to smile for the cameras before the backdrop of the 17th century Taktsang Palphug Monastery across the Paro valley. Porters were on hand, including one with an oxygen cylinder, but the couple — William is 33, Kate a year older — managed without difficulty as they walked hand-in-hand through sunlit wooded uplands.
The royal couple finally got some time to themselves on the sixth day of their hectic tour of India and Bhutan, where they were welcomed on Thursday by the young, and equally glamorous, king and queen of the tiny Himalayan nation.
On Saturday, they plan to return to India and visit the Taj Mahal, retracing the steps of a 1992 visit to the monument of love by William’s mother, the late Princess Diana.
There are also concerns that the site may be overrun by tourists when William and Kate are there, as it only closes for visits by heads of state or government.
