Set off to visit The Burning Lake or Membartsho which is located in the southern part of the Tang Valley. It is more a gorge than a lake and a very sacred site. The name refers to the most famous episode of the famous treasure discoverer, Pema Lingpa's life.

In the early 1475 the saint discovered holy relics hidden here by Guru Rinpoche and thus received his holy mission to propagate religion. To silence skeptical minds, he plunged into the river with a burning lamp and declared: "If I am a demon, I shall die! If I am not, and I am the true spiritual son of Guru Rinpoche, this lamp will continue to burn and I will recover hidden treasures!" That happened, and the place took the name of the Burning Lake. Devout Bhutanese always send a little lamp floating on the water and make a wish.

It is still believed today that people with less sins and spiritual minds are able to distinguish an extraordinary sight in the lake while looking down from a rock overlooking it. At the entrance to the lake is the image of Pema Lingpa along with his two sons carved out on to a rock.

We then drove further on to where we were going to start our walk for taday. On the way we stopped at a clearning so that our guide, Dendup, and driver, Jaganath, could give us a lesson in the Bhutanese darts game known as Khuru. It is usually played on a field about 20 m long with small wooden targets which are driven into the ground. The darts are usually homemade from a block of wood and a nail with feathers or bits of plastic for flights.


We each had a packed picnic lunch from the hotel to have along the way. Our destination for today was the Pema Shedrup Choeki Gatsheling Shedra, a large nunnery.

We ate our picnic lunch at a grassy spot overlooking the valley and after a couple of hours reached the nunnery where we were treated to butter tea - for those of us who didn't partake (me) there was also normal tea and biscuits.