Stairway to Heaven!

Posing by the pool or on the beach aren’t the only things you can do in Thailand ....... to work off all that Thai food you can follow ''The Four Noble Truths'' of Buddha and visit the Tiger Cave Temple near Krabi! The 1260 steps are exemplary for the four noble truths; the Truth of suffering (32C and over 90% humidity you will suffer!), the Truth of the cause of suffering (1260 steps equivalent to 90 normal flights of stairs, except these often resemble concrete ladders), the Truth of the end of suffering (reaching the summit!) and finally the Truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering (climbing down all those stairs!). Here is my sketchbook page

Our first view of the gold dome and Buddha statue was from the taxi which we took for our visit; a glint of gold atop a “mountain” covered in rainforest! At this moment I started to wonder if this was really a good idea! 

We arrived at a very colourful temple complex and were confronted by Nagas (snake beings), Yaksa, temple guardians who take care of precious things (and can also be evil, haunting places and eating travellers, yikes!) and here is one of the friendly chappies. 

There were lots of dragons too, a symbol of power, creativity, wisdom and good fortune (believe me you need a lot of divine intervention to get to the top!). 

I won’t go in to the struggle to get to the top but at 45 minutes I actually didn’t do a bad job and this was the view to reward me! 

Fabulous, even if it did take a while to catch my breath and recover enough to appreciate it! Climbing down wasn’t really that much better but at the bottom is the actual Tiger Cave, in my sketchbook you can see one of the tigers guarding it.

Legend has it that tigers roamed about the caves here and people started leaving votive offerings, in the cave you can see (apparently) tiger claw prints (I was obviously still blinded by sweat and exhaustion!). The Tiger Cave Temple is a seldom chance to take pictures in a religious site in Thailand and was a festival of sights and sounds. 

There were collection boxes for prayers for different causes, in one you could donate for an exorcism, hmmmmm food for thought indeed! 

The whole experience was inspiring, colourful and an object lesson in Buddha's Four noble truths! 

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