Dais

The view from behind Dalai Lama´s throne at the new Sakya monastery in Kaza.

Waiting for Kundun

Waiting for Dalai Lama to arrive for the teachings at the new Sera monastery in Kaza , July 10th.

New and old friends

Kibber

Morning in Kibber. A mule train is being formed in front of the guest house , and the kids are singing a song of parting , and love : "If I had the money (i.e. the dowry) I would bring you with me.

The guesthouse has a coded ad saying chang served here : the low doorpost is padded with a piece of triple folded ground cover , nailed in place. Chang comes in to play in the evening , and more love songs : Kesang teaches us a drinking song where you present your dear one to the world.

Queue culture

After giving up trying to buy a bus ticket in advance I turn to watching the pack of another traveller. This gives me an outside view of my past experiences.
Ticket windows strategies include the time honored Indian classic : push hard until you can grasp the bars of the window ... and pull.
The ederly woman from Kaza is wise beyond years , and refuses to go into any conflicts and aggrovation as long as the response behind the window is basically go away , I'm not selling any tickets (until it's clear that the bus has made it to Kaza). She turns her back on the window , plants her feet wide apart .. and slids down to sit while others make grand gestures. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of her ,and she gives off a wonderful pealing laughter. Nirit stands a short distance behind her , feet also solidly planted on the ground , pushing as relentlessly back as the guys behind her, and not only maintaining her position but (this is the point where I really get impressed ) also holding out for a good seat after a good fortyfive minutes of push and shove.
Later I take a jeep to Kee monastery. The drivers cell phone calls out for attention every few minutes , with a sad , melancholy tune that could have been a Swedish folk song as well. Some hours later I stand on the monastery roof , the only sound being a faint inkling sound from the dishes being washed in the kitchen , a truck boring through the darkness with a load of girders , and the slow flapping from the prayer flag pole.

Soundclip (login : user somnaom , 123456

Scary tourists

Goser scarecrows in Lalung, August 28th.

Only three

Angmo and I turn towards each other at the same time :
"Excuse me , I took a photo without asking ..."
"I have only three apricots.."

The apricots are sweet and plum.













The only thing that is more fun than taking photographs is to turn over your camera to someone else.

Clean and polite ..

Wash day

The hill side of Ki Monastery , seen from above, is dotted with red stylised figures on the ground : wash day , the clothes are laid out on the ground and on top of the bushes to dry.The whole thing gives associations to an art installation , or a crime scene.

ATM run , interrupted

Step 1 : Jump off the bus at Kunzum La.


Proceed up to the prayerflags at the crest , at N 32.40939 / E 077.62674 (altitude 4662)


Drop down to Chandra Tal , at 4296 meters , after 15 klicks.

If you get rain and sleet in front of the ATM two days higher up the valley, choose another machine and walk back .

Looking for the Lama

Bookswap : I come out of Ki Gompa with the monasterys history (bilingual ) and leave a book by Gedun Chopel : Guide to the Sacred Places in India , a pilgrims handbook .. with train maps.

In the mid-70's a Swedish progrock band released a song which no one remembers for it's title, but with a refrain that still brings a whole generation to a standstill, in a variety of reactions .
All together now , in different shades of sentimentality , sobriety and defiance : " Who can you reeeally trust ? "

The title was looking for the Dalai Lama , and few if any reacted - in a time where anti-colonialism was a catchword - to the practice of taking a living Tibetan person and turning him in to a metaphorical tool for internal Western conflicts.

Tibet was at a safe distance , eight years before the supression of the Lhasa revolt and fourteen years before Dalai lama received the Nobel Peace Price. It was partly put there by the agenda of the Swedish left , who averted their eyes to anything but the Indochina war - and kept it averted after the defeat of the US.


The song was about looking for truths , and not leaders - a message that not only had bearing on the generation toting pictures of chairmens and party leaders , but remains valid in a present context , where many look for not the method of Buddhism but the prepared answers. Buddha in a box , retail price.

A long time after the melee of the 70's ( yes, sex was more fun before AIDS) reality will intrude on similar attempts at using the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile there is the real ongoing search for lamas : Tibetans looking for Gedun Choeki Nyima , the Panchen Lama abducted by the Chines government eleven years ago : a dress rehearsal for the grand event to come : the passing of the present Dali Lama. So far the the Panchen Lama rehearsal has not run smoothly . Two years ago I was in Shigatse and could see the Tibetans systematicaly ignoring the Chinese apppointed Panchen (Zuma Panchen , fake Panchen in Tibetan) : lots of pictures of the 9th and 10th , with fresh flowers fruits etc. - and two pictures of Zuma Panchen - with a naked shelf below.It is no coincidence that there has been no serious attempts to establish him in Tashilunpo monastery .
The 10th is obviously hugely popular , in spite of his long time in the People's Congress in Beijing . What Tibetans remember him for is coming back and saying that nothing of what had been gained was worth all the sufferings of the Tibetan people , and the famous letter before that. There is another level though , which links Spiti intimately in to this process : before the great speech and the letter , Panchen Lama made a religious ruling that effectively limited Chinese power. The ruling was that the next re-incarnation of Rinchen Zangpo , one of the most important figures in Tibetan religious history , would be found in the " Western Lands " , i.e. outside Chinese control. This is where he is found now , in the monastery of Ki. The Ki monastery monks have by tradition studied in Tashilunpo (shigatse) monastery , and this link was re-affirmed when the Rinchen Zangpo become head of the commitee to identify the present Panchen Lama. This game will continue : recently the Communist Party declared that all reincarnations are now subject to official state approval , and invalid before that point. Meanwhile the Ki monks will continue to go to Tashilunpo monastery - but now in south India . All major Tibetan monasteries now exist in two mirror versions , one in exile , one under Chinese control. Welcome to the twilight zone of Chinese religious politics..

Now we\re cooking

The stove is in full swing now , amy-lais prayer wheel has also picked up speed ,Suchung and his wife are doing complex exercises with atta flour and another old woman has entered to run a load of butter tea through the butter churner : shlorp-shlorp-shlorp.
The TV sputters in to life now and then , ;pouring out bollywoodism, commercials and thrilling cricket results.
Meawhile I"ve landed in the bachelors corner , with a good buzz going from the arrak.

Somebody says something about the inji : I'm just past it , and join in the laughter with out understanding anything.

The 3D exercises with the atta flour turns out to be tingmo : not the big Princess-Leia-hairdo on steroids I'm used to from Manju ka tilla , but delicate , convoluted shapes - think Escher in bakery.

Dhankar

Wake up to the sound of ... rain. Crazy.

Got out of the bus two klicks out of Sichiling, and had one of those what-am-I-doing-here moments as I stood alone and watched it going away. Next moment a jeep stops, and Sonam from Tabo pops out his head. As they prepare to go away , another jeep stops to talk with the other .. which turns out to be Kesang from Kaza. More two-hand handshakes.

Dhankar perched high on the ridge , some six hundred meters above : I set out feeling a bit queasy. Halfway up I meet Yechung Dolkar , who assumes responsiblity for my ariiving in a civilised hour.Despite my feeble attempts to say that no , you , don\t have to wait for me. Relentlessly she pushes me up the mountain , by just standing there and looking at me until I get moving again.

We part as we we come in to Dhankar Village , and a flight of swallows dive out of the trailside grove. I dive in to the first house with a welcome sign, and get a guestroom, and sit in the kitchen as the evening meal is prepared. I wind up with a toddler on my lap, as the men go slowly about making dinner. By the time the rest of the household appears, the dinner is finished.

Denial becomes impossible at this point and I start waltzing between the kitchen and the toilet.
Evening ends with a double dose of Cipro , and drinking hot honey wter brought up by Suchung-le. Nice chat over a fifteen minute candle stump.

next day , still a bit wobbly in the knees. Go up to Dhankar Gompa. The entrance hall to the dhukhang holds some interesting images of monasteries , and between them elaborate images of .... shoes , with comments. The two lay monks , teenagers in jeans and baseball caps , are unfortunately not in the same league as Sonam in Tabo : the monansteries are " in Tibet" , and all paintings are eight hundred years old.

Manning & Tabo

Today's big project is to clean up my table. Or : the most important things are beyond words. So , in the spirit of Thomas manning : my table. Thanks to the solar panel on the roof there is a working writing light (see upper left corner). The folded Silva 12 V solar panel supplied nicely for my camera during the three day power out. The trombe (passive solar heating wall) of the monastery serai , where I stayed is incidentally the largest I've ever seen.

(Tabo Choskor , religious enclave, is the oldest working Buddhist monastery in original form in India, founded in 996. Also one of only three surviving examples of the Kashmiri Buddhist painters , that re-introduced Buddhism in to India with the Second Spreading together with the Great Translator - Lotsawa.

Thomas Manning succeeded where countless other westerners had failed in reaching Lhasa, and was unable to say anything about the the Potalas logic defying perspective or the countless art treasures .He went looking for a hat.)

Back to Kaza

In to Spiti

The bus rocks, swings and creaks like a ship in .... interesting weather .Some hours has gone by since leaving Kalpa luxuriously in afront seat of a Manali jeep. A ride that also came with good company and conversation from France.

The first glimpse of Spiti is a weather worn chorten , protected not only by by a crudely hammered multi colored tin roof from the BRO but also for some reason encircled by barbed wire.
Signs of life seems even sparser than when crossing in to Ladakh. Even the happy-go-lucky semi military sign painting squad from the BRO seems a bit taken by the environment : none of the usual streams of motherly advice , jokes and puns ("Darling , I want you , but not so fast" ) that I've come to take for granted from Ladakh. Just one single , sombre , litterary allusion : " Live and let live " , painted on a sharply descending rock curve.

A Buddhist cave adorned with prayer flags on the other side of the Sutlej river , with seeming impossible access, shoots by. Some khyang at a flat , narrow strip along the riverbed.
This time I've given up all attempts of poping out of the window and and holding on to my camera , let alone operating it. I,m hemmed in between two Kinnauri ladies one who switches to my window seat to dry retch out of the window.
On the other side sits a gelong and three nuns from Hango monastery. The nuns fret , in a nice way , with their one piece of finery : Himalchali hats with with dried white petals that catches the light like blades of fiber optics.

Afte the checkpost at Jangi ( where I technically becmes an illegal : " shall not resort to any photography, carry any maps not approved by the Defence Ministry. or or immaginaries.. " ) there is suddenly no one standing , and only two people in the two seats rows. A depp breathing spree ensues , which is dampened by the arrivall of new passengers and sacks at .

The road dips and bends ( " Horn Please " has been replaced by " It is an offence not to sound the horn at .. ") ; skirts precipices and shoots i to rock galleries in the usual way.

The canyons are different though : giant patterns of contrasting stone materials suddenly frozen , on smooth sides .Gargantuan coffeee and cream , and later licorice , Jackson Pollockses.

In a magic moment the bus descends steeply in to a sumdo :one canyon to the right , with a near perfect sugar cone reaching up to the golden evening light and the road cutting in to a rock gallery after crossing a Bailey bridge thick with prayer flags.

Didn't get the shot , but got apples instead , and a sense of sharing , from ne of the sacks on the floor instead.

In Kaza

If you lower it someone will come .Ground cover : just establish eye contact and throw it to someone.

Spiti bound

Leaving Shimla from the Rivoli bus stand , August 29th.