The Thongdrel, at dawn.

On our last day in Bhutan we got up before dawn to witness a unique spectacle.

The Paro Tsechu is a four-day religious festival. Hours of story-telling through music, acting, dancing and chanting ensure an engrossing and atmospheric event. 

Our early start on its last day was to see the highlight: the display of the thongdrel, a huge century-old tapestry of the country's mustachioed deity, Guru Rinpoche. The mere viewing of this work-of-art is said to cleanse the viewer of their sins. (Useful!).

To music and chanting, smells of burning incense and cypress wood, people queued to worship the image and touch it to their forehead. Hundreds, if not thousands, did this before it was raised again pre-sunrise for another year. 

In the cold, dawn pre-light it was a 'hairs standing-up on the back of your neck' experience and although I'm not a morning person, the early start was worth it before our flight from this beautiful and fascinating country.

Tiger's Nest.

In a trip that included many stunning sights and moments, the day trek to Taktshang Goemba, or 'Tiger's Next' monastery, was one of the highlights.

Perched perilously on a sheer cliff-face 3,000 feet above the surrounding valley floor, at around 11,000 feet in altitude, it's really quite some location.

The hike up was steep, spectacular and exhausting (we'd arrived in Bhutan just the day before and not adjusted to the altitude), through pine forests dripping with mosses, past prayer flags on tall poles and chortens (shrines) with chiming prayer wheels turned by mountain streams.

The final precipitous stretch - along winding stone steps, over a small bridge with a drop of several hundred feet on one side and a tumbling waterfall on the other, and past an ancient temple wedged into an overhanging cliff-face - was like some high-altitude fantasy landscape. 

We were fortunate: with numbers of visitors to the country down and our well-timed, post-lunch arrival at Taktshang, our small group made up the only visitors to the ancient monastic complex that afternoon.

I won't forget exploring this peaceful, sacred place. The winding stairs like an Escher drawing; the spectacular, technicolour shrines full of candles, painting and sculpture - vivid with life. And all the time, the wind blowing gently though the old corridors and the jaw-dropping views to the valley far below.

(Photographs were not allowed within the complex itself).

On top of the world.

Blessed with a 14-inch penis. (At least for a day).

The outsides of many Bhutanese homes are adorned with beautiful paintings. Sometimes a dragon, sometimes a tiger, sometimes a six-foot phallus or two. All are there to ward-off evil spirits.

A short hike across some rice terraces and up a low dusty hill in the shape of a woman's breast - my guidebook's description, not mine - and we reached the temple to the Divine Madman, Lama Drukpa Kunley, a deity in this country for his religious teachings and, oddly, his love of wine and women; hence the appendage.

At the shrine, having spun prayer wheels, removed our shoes to enter the temple and made a small offering, each of us was tapped on the forehead by a monk with a bow plus three oversized... err... dicks: one of bone, one of wood and one of bamboo. It's supposed to be auspicious.

Just another day taking in the culture of this country...