Pekor Monastery, family lunch and Travel to Shigatse and Sakya

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We set off in the morning for a walk into the local town to see the Tibetan way of life and to also make our way to the monastery.

Walking through the town it was so quiet, with very few people around. Kandol talked us through the types of buildings on the road into the village. In traditional Tibetan houses the ground floor is for animals and the families live on the first floor. Walking through the streets, we saw a number of houses with tiny doors that even I would need to duck to get through! it was explained to us that the houses were built this way to keep the zombies out and they can’t get that low down to get in the house!

We walked down a cobbled hill with a view of the old part of town, I was quite surprised by the size of it. As we continued down the hill we came across a house with a yaks head on the windowsill outside, these are used to keep hungry ghosts away.

We continued to walk into the old part of town and head towards the monastery. There were many houses with cattle tied up outside which made for an interesting walk down the street! We also saw some great examples of the dung patties made by the locals. They collect the yak and cow dung in the morning and hand sculpt them into a disc shape and lay them out to dry, they’re then used in the winter for fuel. we have seen this everywhere whilst we have been tracelling round and some houses even use them to decorate the walls outside.

After a walk through town and past the oldest coffee house we made it to the entrance of Pekor monastery, we took a tour round and took some photos outside, at this point, it started to snow so we headed indoors to look round. There was a cost incurred for any photos/ videos taken inside the monastery and on this occasion, I decided not to part with the cash and enjoy the walk round instead! After visiting the temples and statues we went back outside and I took a walk up a few levels of the stupa next to the temple, this was unique as you can walk up a number of levels and on each one there is a collection of small rooms with statues and Paintings to view, all of which were pretty impressive. I made it to the second floor and then went back to the front of the monastery to meet the rest of the group to go to lunch.

It had been arranged for us to go and have lunch with a local family, we were welcomed by a lady, her son and her two grandsons. They had prepared lunch for us which was rice, veggies and some yak meat and there was loads of it! We each took a bowl of rice and added whichever additional bits we wanted and we were also served with sweet tea - so sweet it almost made me twitch! - and barley beer which was a little bit sherry like in it‘s taste. I would like to say at this point I mastered the art of eating rice with chopsticks, but, I would be telling a big fat lie! It took a while, but, I managed to eat all my lunch :-) as a side note, I have got a lot better at eating rice with chopsticks which is a result!

After lunch we were invited to go and look around the house and we took a couple of selfies with Carrie’s selfie stick which came in very handy throughout our trip.

After lunch and our thanks and goodbyes were conveyed to our hosts we headed back to the mini bus for the journey to Shigatse.

We stayed overnight in Shigatse and set off for Sakya, which was around a 4 hour drive. We arrived and had lunch in the local restaurant and visited the Sakya Monastery, we took a tour round the monastery which was built in 1073 with two main temples (north and south), the monastery holds a huge amount of relics from the Tibetan empire and 84,000 scriptures all kept in the one place. The scriptures line a huge wall behind the statues you first see as you enter, they are protected by wooden slabs on stop and bottom and wrapped in fabric, we noticed a few of them looked like they had been pulled out slightly and were sticking out, when we asked about it, it’s believed that if there will be a disaster in the world, it will be documented in the scriptures and the relevant one will slide out of place so it’s highlighted. The scripture will then be studied. As an example, there is one scripture which detailed the 2015 earthquake in the region.

After our walk through the temple we climbed a set of steep steps and walked around the roof of the monastery, the view from there is beautiful. It’s possible to see the mountains in the background and we were also able to view from the top where the monks live.

We returned from our tour of the monastery and set off to buy suppplies for Everest base camp, for me, this included a hot water bottle and some snacks and coffee. We also picked up pastries for breakfast as we would be on the road early.

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