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Published: October 13th 2006
30/09/06 Thimphu Again!
Our day started with a morning hike up to the Tango Monastery. The 250m ascent took about an hour and was well worth the effort. The monastery was beautiful - so quiet and peaceful. A central courtyard contains a small building where butter lamps were burning. We were shown around the temple by the caretaker monk who led us up 3 steep wooden staircases, more like ladders between the floors, in order to show us the 5 temple rooms. The monastery houses a young monk, now 13 years old. When he was 6 or 7, it was realized that he was the reincarnation of a great Lama. Many photos of the monk as a 6 year old adorn the temple areas. As a boy, he recognized possessions that he had owned in a previous life and answered questions with satisfactory answers to convince all of his previous existence.
We were shown many holy relics, with the monk explaining to us the importance of each. One of the five temples housed stones, which contained imprints of the footprint of Guru Rimpochey and the hoof of his horse. Another holy relic was a black stone looking box that
The Guru Rimpochey
Gold image that lights your way to a favourable verdictcontained a ‘key’ - a long thin strip of metal that slid out of the stone. They key has been used many times in order to help dumb babies speak. Allegedly if the key is pressed against their tongue and then they journey to another location nearby in the valley to drink of the holy water found there, then they will speak. We were assured that this had worked on many occasions and that many dumb babies had found their voice in this way.
Passing along the valley road, we saw a large gold painting of the Guru Rimpochey, painted onto the rock cliff face. Supposedly if you have a dispute or court case pending and pass the picture at midnight then you will find out what the outcome of your dispute will be. If the road is pitch black and you can see nothing then the outcome will be against you, however if the road is lit up in all directions with light emanating from the picture, then the outcome will be in your favour.
We re-visited the temple at Wangchuk Resort to see the head monk once more, taking Jen’s recently acquired ornamental prayer wheel and
Butter Lamps
In the Tango Monastery courtyard prayer flag to be blessed. The monk performed a blessing ceremony on them; he sat crossed legged and placed the objects in front of him, along with a bowl of incense, ceremonial dagger and jug of holy water adorned with peacock feathers. He began chanting prayers and drizzled the holy water onto the items before holding them one by one over the incense bowl.
In the afternoon, we viited the Thimphu nunery to see some ladies of the burgundy cloth and then stopped at a bookshop to pick up some books of Bhutanese literature and then headed for Paro and Gangtey Palace once more, in close proximity to the airport for our morning flight the next day.
A big, big thank you to all our guides from
KeystoBhutan, Gelay, Anan and Raju for such a fantastic experience, for being flexible enough to change our itinary and for the gifts. We love the book of Bhutanese photography. (Anyone visiting Bhutan who looks at postcards to send home will see the names Anan and Gelay on the back of many images of the country).
We felt that our 10 days had flown by. But as they say Unward and
Looking out
A monk looks through the ornate carved arches of the Tango Monastic college. Gelay from KeystoBhutan has promised to hike back up to the monastic college to deliver a copy of the photo at the monk's request. Keep an eye on the comments on this page for confirmation of delivery... :-) Upward... Next stop Everest - The roof of the world!
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Gelay
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Swinging Raju
Really like the pic of Raju swinging - The Swinging Raja