Samye

Hi again ...

Having spent 5 days in Lhasa we set off to the Samye Monastery in the Shannan Region. It was a good 4 to 5 hour drive from the capital city. The journey was a very dusty one as we traversed a tiny portion of the Tibetan Grasslands or rather desert. The scenery was bright beige and blue as lovely weather accompanied us throughout. The arid dry land had mirror lakes as its beauty spots.
We reached a high view point where I decided to throw a batch of colorful 'lucky flying horses' into the air. Time and place couldn't have been more appropriate. We were the only group of people out. Other than us only the wind dared to break the silence.


We entered the small mandala-shaped city with the Samye Monastery at its heart. The only lodging was a hostel just paces away from the Monastery itself. There were some other minibuses and coaches parked tightly next to each other in the internal yard. Most of whose passengers were either locals on pilgrimage or Chinese 'local' tourists. We were practically the only Westerners there.

Our drivers and hosts helped us with our backpacks to the tiny rooms surrounding the yard. The bedrooms weren't too bad actually quite cosy looking with tonnes of bedding on them to keep our bodies warm from the cold chill air of the night. Luckily, Catherine and I got the room furtherest away on the top floor so we had a terrace to ourselves with a spectacular view of the Monastery to our right. The clean squat toilets were just at the other end of the terrace. The showers, I never saw.

We had lunch of fried rice, egg and tomatoes in the hostel's modest restaurant. Then at around 4pm went to pay a visit to the heart of the city. The Samye Monastery is the oldest one in Tibet and the only one to conglomerate the four sects of Tibetan Buddhism; Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug. The Monastery was a large and colourful as all the others we had visited so far, however different. *The whole construction is quite complex. It replicates the universe as described in the sutras. The central world Mount Meru is represented by the majestic Wuzi Hall. The Sun and Moon chapels stand in the north and south as the sun and moon in the universe. Four larger halls and eight smaller halls are distributed around all sides of the central hall, symbolizing the four large continents and eight small ones. In the four corners lie the Red, White, Black and Green Pagodas guarding the Dharma like the Heavenly Kings. A circular wall surrounds the temple as if marking the periphery of the world. The layout of Samye Monastery resembles the Mandala in the Esoteric Buddhism.

Having paid our visit, Sharon our leader wanted to take us for an 'acclimatisation walk' - a small hill climb of about 350m - just enough to get our heads clear off the high altitude and therefore have a good night's sleep. The steep climb wasn't nice n' easy and was quite slippery with no hard tracks up it. But in the end it was definitely worth it. We were so caught up with the view that we spent at least an hour up there. The small summit was a sanctuary in its self. A lonely monastery occupied by a couple of monks, adorned it. We sat on the terrace, observing the mandala-shaped town on one side and the lonely mountains on the other side. We relished the gorgeous views while exquisitely savoured the peacefulness of our surroundings. The whole experience was breathtaking not to mention the cold strong wind which almost made us feel unwelcome. As the sun lowered in the distant mountains we started to make our way down.

On our way back to the hostel we felt like a good drink. We were up for celebration that night with Sharon having just announced her new job promotion. We stopped at a typical but empty restaurant and cheered the owners with our presence. We ordered local wine which was closer to vinegar but drinkable, soda which burned your throat with the concoction of sweet additives and yak butter tea, which simply smelt and tasted of nothing but pure yak's milk. Drinks went straight to our heads and a funny episode is what we needed to just tip us over.

Jori and Flip when to the squat loo and at one point we heard Jori yelling. We were stunned and during those few seconds when you're caught in-between deciding whether the yell was a call for help or not, Aaron (her fiance) jumped over the back of the sofa and dashed to her rescue - just like Flash Gordon! There was nothing to rescue her from except a urination attack from Mysterious Flip!! How the girl had managed was beyond us. The girls were hysteric and we were were soon effectuated by their laughter and haphazard story. Having calmed down we ordered some food which turned out to be quite colourful indeed. My plate was an artist's palette; pink shredded cabbage, yellow curried potatoes, a think slab of brown meat over white rice garnished with red chili sauce.

We walked back to the Monastery in complete darkness save the light from my head torch and our mobile phones. None of us seemed to want to go to bed. I made myself an instant coffee out of a sachet and munched some tasteless Cadburys underneath a sky full of diamonds. I was captivated by the wonderful gems in the still cold night when suddenly Flip burst the door open and cracked up a laugh which peeled into the stillness night into the mountains. Wearing her woolly PJs and fluffy slippers she carried their bedroom's pee-in pot. Apparently, she had won a bet with Kate, to actually pee in the pot rather than having to go to the squat toilets across the roof terrace. Well, it was hilarious especially when Kate showed us the video of her in action.

We finally made ourselves go to bed and get a good night's kip before hitting the road again for a 10-hour drive to our next destination, Gyantse.

:)
N
X



* The following description has been extracted from the following website where you can also find more details about the Monastery:-
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/tibet/shannan/tsetang/samye_monstery.htm