Monestary Hike

This morning, we woke and walked to an internet cafe to publish my blog.  The cafe had excellent cinnamon rolls which tasted good compered to all of our recent Chinese food.  I am getting to the point where I feel sick after every bowl of Chinese soup!  On our route form the cafe to the hotel, we saw Buddhists, holding prayer beads and chanting, walking around a temple in the center of the old town of Lhasa.  We watched extremely serious Buddhists repeatedly throw themselves to the ground on their bellies, faces and hands in order to get really good juju.  Next to these people walking the Khora, there were ubiquitous Tibetan shops selling all kinds of goods.  In every corner, policemen and soldiers in riot gear with big machine guns guarded with stern expressions. 

Back at the hotel, we met the rest of the kayak crew for lunch. After lunch, we decided to go for a hike with one of the boaters named Catherine.  We took a taxi to an old monastery at the base of a big, steep, cliffy mountain. 

 

We started our hike behind this monastery, on a long stairway up past beautiful paintings of Buddhas and Tibetan script.



Our goal was to hike up to another old monastery built high up on the cliffs.




We climbed our way up through prayer flags and bushes and small cliffs. 



The hike was long and hard with barely any trail. When we finally arrived, tired and sweaty, we found this place deserted.  It looked like a mixture between a monastery and somebody's house. 

 

The only life we found was a lonely dog and thorny bushes.  We explored the buildings for a while, then found a well developed trail continuing from the monastery around the mountain.




It was late in the afternoon, but we decided to follow the trail rather than to go back down the cliff.  The trail took us to an old man’s house where we were invited in for tea.  He had a beautiful house with flowers and his own prayer room.  In the prayer room, there were many golden Buddha's, stands containing burning candles, and paintings of Buddhist figures.  The old man served tasty tea and hot water. 



Soon we had to be on our way.  We walked through one more monastery on the way down the mountain. 



At the end of our hike we caught a bus to the same restaurant we went to last night.  We had a lovely dinner and I have returned home for the night.

Thank you for reading Rohan Geographic!