The other day we got ourselves up nice and early and headed to the bus station to organize a ride to Samye which is 150 kms southeast of Llasa and is where the first Tibetan monestary is built in the 8th century. Upon arrival to the bus station, we each experienced a bit of what Britney Spears must tackle everyday with the pappis, as we were swarmed with men asking us where we wanted to go and then following us in a heard as we walked towards the station. I am so glad Mike and Jason can speak chinese...it has made what could be tricky so very not. So in Llasa you can get lifts in peoples' personal cars and they issue you with official bus tickets. odd. It was quite a thrilling ride those 150kms. Pigs, yaks, goats, sheep, and cows in the road and people seem to be hard pressed to stop...they just lay on the horn.The landscape is stark and vast and dry. Very Central Otago for those of you who know that landscape. After a very zippy trip our driver dropped us off at this river where we were meant to catch a ferry across to the monestary. It looked deserted so we weren't so sure if we had just been abandoned in the middle of nowhere but soon a Tibetan family arrived and we pretty much fell in love with them. We offered them a bread roll, we tried to communicate as best as we could but after the warmed up to us, it was all smiles and head nods. I asked them if I could take their picture and the father took off his jacket and sat like a chief for a portrait and the mother took off her head scarf. They were very eager to see their pictures and seemed pleased. While waiting for the ferry, MIke and Jason found some perfect skipping rocks and soon our Tibetan father joined in with them. It was cool to see them and then lots of other men join in. But then we soon made our way to our ferry which was really like a big row boat with a lawn mower motor stuck in the water. We meandered through sand dunes and islands for 45 minutes until we got to the other side where we were met by a minibus that drove us the last 20 minutes to a wall village and monestery passes sand dunes and tall gray mountains. At Samye, they have accomodation for monks, pilgrims, and travelers to the monestary. That is all there is to see so we made our way over and enjoyed a more relaxed visit to the monestary than the ones in Llasa. They are such ecclectic, almost frenetic, collage-like sacred spaces. Metals, Papers, flowers, candles, tiles, pictures, paintings, sculpture, statues, they have it all right there. Our Tibetan family had obviously made their way to this particular sacred space and we saw them in the main chapel saying their prayers with their daughter hanging around their knees. This particular monestary was really well taken care and after we had been through the whole thing we were on our way out and this little tiny old woman thought we hadn't been upstairs so she urged us and even walked us towards the stairs and we just didn't want to break her heart so we went back up but snuck out the back making sure she didn't see us. The people in Samye were very welcoming and friendly but we have found the customer service in Tibet to be....uh....non existent. :) We had a nice fried rice and cabbage dinner at the local restaurant and a relaxing evening. It was nice to be out of the city and not in a room right outside a Yak butcher like in Llasa. We woke up early (mike really early with his first travel vomit which was luckily up on the room) but all of us had special experiences in the squats at the hostel. Holy boy, these ones were amazing...shoots in the floor that depended on gravity to move the goods or should I say bads? We got back on the bus that took us back to the boat but we did awake to snow on many of the surrounding mountains so we packed on all our layers for the chilly ride across the river. We boarded the motorized row boat and made our way across pretty quickly and luckily there was a bus right there going towards Llasa but we got dropped off midway and got a bus to Shigatse which we thought was going to be a couple hours but was actually 4! The road was paved most of the way but for the second half it was really bumpy but through beautiful canyons and landscape that was similar to the South west desert of New Mexico just without the cactus and really high snowy peaks in the distance. Oh Boy it was quite the ride through some very desolate places really. Finally we arrived in Shigatse and we found ourselves a dorm room, some food, and some internet. We are going to be hanging out here for the next couple days until we can get the permit to travel the 4 days to the Nepal border which we made quite a significant move towards today. Yes, is is getting colder but still nice and warm in the sun. There are a few monestaries here that we will visit and the monks all wear these boots that look warm and sturdy and are kind of funky so I want to see if I can get some...until the next time a few pix on the site. ¡¡
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment