Day #9 - Tengboche Monastery

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Tengboche is famous for its Monastery, and Dirge is happy to take a few of us to it for a look around. It is an impressive building, but very cold. As is the custom, we take our boots/shoes off at the door and quietly proceed into the building. The cold of the stone floor is immediately underfoot. We creep into the corner of the room, where about 20 or so trekkers are watching the 3 Buddhist Monks who are quietly chanting away to themselves. The only other noise to be heard are the rustle of gortex jackets and the occasional stiffled cough.

After about 20 minutes of listening to the monks chanting, and being impressed with their dedication in such a cold environment, I was about to get up off the cold stone floor and leave. Fortuitously, the monks came to an end of their chanting, gathered their sparse belongings and got up to leave. The two monks who passed me each had underneath their religious robes, a dark brown down puffa jacket to keep them warm!! Well I cant blame them given the cold, but it did lessen the awe I had for them as devotees to Buddism - just a little bit.

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