Bhutan - Lindsay Brown [138]
The road becomes rougher as it approaches the bridge at Kizum (Ki Zam), 22km from the road junction. This is generally the end point of the Bumthang Cultural trek, though the increasingly rough road does continue a few kilometres further to Gamling and Wobtang.
You can take in all the sites in this section in a good day trip from Jakar, or on the drive back to Jakar at the end of the Bumthang Cultural trek. Better still, overnight at the secluded Ogyen Chholing Guest House.
Membartsho
A five-minute walk from a parking spot at a bend in the road leads to a picturesque pool in the Tang Chuu that is known as Membartsho (Burning Lake). Pema Lingpa found several of Guru Rinpoche’s terma here. It’s a lovely spot, where nature, religion and mythology blur into one.
A wooden bridge crosses the prayer-flag–strewn river gorge and offers a good vantage point over the ‘lake’. Only the enlightened will spot the temple that lurks in the lake’s inky depths. The sanctity of the site is made obvious by the numerous small clay offerings called tsha-tsha piled up in various rock niches.
Under a rock shrine with a carving of Pema Lingpa and his two sons is a cave that virtuous people can crawl through, no matter how big they are. Beware: it’s quite small, and very dusty.
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THE BURNING LAKE
Two of Pema Lingpa’s most celebrated discoveries took place at Membartsho.
The first took place when a dream told him to go to a point where the river forms a large pool that looks like a lake. After a while, standing on a large rock, he saw a temple with many doors, only one of which was open. He plunged naked into the lake and entered a large cave where there was a throne, upon which sat a life-sized statue of Lord Buddha and many large boxes. An old woman with one eye handed him one of the chests and he suddenly found himself standing on the rock at the side of the lake holding the treasure.
Pema Lingpa’s second treasure find was the most famous. His previous terma had instructed him to return to the lake but when he did so many people gathered to watch the event and the sceptical penlop of the district accused him of trickery. Under great pressure to prove himself, Pema Lingpa took a lighted lamp and proclaimed: ‘If I am a genuine revealer of your treasures, then may I return with it now, with my lamp still burning; if I am some devil, then may I perish in the water.’ He jumped into the lake, was gone long enough that the sceptics thought they were proven right, and then suddenly he emerged back on the rock with the lamp still burning and holding a statue and a treasure chest. The lake became known as Membartsho, or Burning Lake.
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Kunzangdrak Goemba
A stiff hour-long, Stairmaster-style climb up the hillside above Drangchel leads to one of the most important sites related to Pema Lingpa. He began construction of the goemba in 1488, and many of his most important sacred relics are kept here.
The first chapel has a kora path around it, with Chenresig, Guru Nazey (a form of Guru Rinpoche) and Namkhai Ningpo inside. Walk around the back of the building to the gravity-defying Khandroma Lhakhang, spectacularly situated against a vertical rock face that seeps holy water. Ask to see the stone anvil bearing the footprint of Pema Lingpa. Finally, cross over the small bridge, past a fire-blackened cleft in the cliff, to the spooky goenkhang.
Figure on three to four hours for the return trip.
Tang Rimochen Lhakhang
Tang Rimochen Lhakhang was built by Pema Lingpa