Debating Monks

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It's funny how strange things change. I just spent an hour washing my own clothes. I know the hotel can probably do it for me just like the last one could but somehow it's almost comforting to me to do it by myself. When I went to India I don't think I cleaned a single piece by myself but now I'd almost prefer to do them myself. It gives me a feeling of being alive almost. I'm staying in a dorm room now for 5 dollars a night and I'm actually glad for the hard bed. Right now I've got the whole dorm to myself - two rooms, five beds, a TV, two desks, and two coat racks - one of which is currently completely filled with my drying clothes.

After drying my clothes at my new hotel Mathieu came to pick me up and we went to lunch together. We went to a great little place that we'd found together from "the guide" as he calls it (the Lonely Planet Tibet) called Tashi I. We both had chicken and vegetable bobis which are like fajitas with a little garlic spread and tortillas that you get to put together yourself - they were really great. We also had a piece of "cheese cake" which was yak cheese and some sort of graham together in a square with pineapple on top. After eating I went to the bank for money for my ticket to Chengdu and we continued to Sera Monastery. Sera is a cool little place almost like a town filled with temples and places where the monks live. We walked around checking out the smaller temples and then heard a horn calling. At first I thought it was telling the time but when it continued we decided to go over to it. We walked up to a little courtyard where a bunch of monks were entering and finding their spots on the rocks - sitting on little square pillows. Some of them had already begun by what seemed like chanting but we realized wasn't as they were debating with each other. Such a strange way of debating! They were broken into 2s and two monks wzere debating with each other - one seating and one standing. They both had what we might call rosary beads, the one sitting had them over his shoulder. The one standing seemed to be making the points of the argument, in such a strange way! He started by saying a point really loudly and throwing his whole body into a clap at the end of his point. When he did this the other monk would comment and the standing monk would make another point again clapping. There were many of these such pairs spread out throughout the whole courtyard and in the back were groups of these debating groups with one person standing making the points and a bunch of monks sitting down arguing with that point. In one of these sitting groups was a small boy but most of the monks were my age or much older. Mathieu had actually planned to come to Sera at this point to see this debate which was talked about in the guide. Obviously many others had heard about it from the guide - including a couple of tour groups because there were tons of foreigners walking around the edge of the courtyard watching the debates. Mathieu and I walked around and sat down for a little until there were so many foreigners that all we could see were people's rear ends and we decided to leave. We walked aorund some more and got to see the monk's Kitchen and another big temple. We ran into a monk on his cell phone which I thought was kind of comical. Then we happened on a different courtyard of monks - this time they were all sitting meditating and chanting. We sat for a bit as Mathieu took a sound clip of them chanting. Then we walked around the complex a bit more but of course the temples were all closed as the monks were all debating or meditating. We decided to try to climb the mountain behind the complex to see some rock paintings but we couldn't find out how to get out of the complex and up the hill. FInally some really nice monks managed to communicate to us to follow them (as they didn't speak English or Chinese). We spent a couple hours climbing but it was a bit difficult as the altitude was causing us to pant like dogs as we climbed - therefore making us take more breaks than we normally would. It was the most difficult rock climbing I'd ever done and unfortunately I picked the difficult way down - the way with tons of little pebbles on top of the big rocks causing us to slide a lot. I landed on my butt a couple times before I decided to sit on one foot and keep the other leg in front of me and ski all the way down - that is until I cut my thumb. It wasn't cut badly but it bled a lot - enough to scare me a bit. I'm sure Mathieu was a little tired of climbing with me by the end as I may have seemed like a bit of a city girl with no climbing skills. But he did his best to put up with me. We finally made it back down and I sat to clean my thumb. We began walking back to get a taxi into Lhasa and realized we were in the monks circumambulation path walking the wrong way. We did our best to keep out of their way and politely say hello to them in Tibetan (Tashi Dele) - which they absolutely loved even though we didn't say anything else in Tibetan. When we got almost down we found a hill of yak skulls on top of bones - an interesting sight - and then continuing on down a bunch of cows and some good climbing mountain goats in a small town at the bottom. We got lucky that there was also a fair paying taxi in the town that took us back to Lhasa. We stopped a bit - I bought a ring with Tibetan Buddhist smile on it and he bought a couple things. Afterwards we got really hungry and went to a great place called Makye Amye that was recommended to me by a couple people on the tour. I had Shende Chilli Chicken and he Tashi Delek - both with rice. We tried the barley wine which wasn't quite sweet enough and the yoghurt wine which was a bit too sour. Then I suggested he get his much loved Lhasan fries which he turned down the offer until the table next to us got some and he got a really bad craving. As he waited he said he almost fainted with anxiety and he was practically chain eating them when they came. I have to admit they are really good as they're actually made with real potatoes - something you don't find in China but for some reason are popular here. I had a brownie - chocolate cake with yak butter on top which was really rich. We talked for a bit and decided to leave almost as soon as we left he got really quiet - not as talkative as before (which he seems to do every now and then). We decided to go to an Internet Cafe and I tried to get him talking but it didn't work very well so I asked him what was up and he started to tell me but then skipped the subject. We went and I checked my e-mail and wrote a couple back as well as showed him my sister who he said was physically different than I am as she's obviously bigger. Afterwards he walked me back to my hotel and gave me his guide so I have to see him in Beijing, he seemed to be stammering a bit as we left and I wished he'd come up and talked some more but he decided to go pack. I don't know what was on his mind but he still wasn't as talkative as earlier. Sometimes good-byes are hard for people - even myself - as there are always those people you wish weren't leaving but are. I've gotten better over the years at saying these good-byes but it's still a bit difficult - and may always be.

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