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Published: June 29th 2008
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Kangding/Dardo
Kanding is built in a narrow mountain valley. It was not without qualms that Graham and I planned our 2004 journey to Kham, as this extract from a letter he sent me attests:
We should get two copies of a significant Buddhist text to read and discuss. You say you are starved for such interaction - it may help us not to get bored with each other - though how could I get bored with you? Seriously. I am sure that we both know that travelling a deux puts a strain on any relationship. Anyway, I have a a translation by Robert Thurman of the Tibetan version of the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa and a commentary on it by Sangharakshita that I could put off reading till June. And maybe another stab at Buddhadasa'a commentary on Dependent Origination. Anyway, there are 3 branches of a wonderful Buddhist Philosophy bookshop here in Hong Kong that you might like to browse before we set off.
The one thing that worries me is that these days my energy seeps away alarmingly quickly. And I have got into the habit of having a largish lunch and only soup or salad in the evening. So should be no problem though if we end up walking Kangding/Dardo
In the centre of town the river rushed down the middle of the main street. a lot I could get hungry. To be honest, I am looking forward to exploring the culinary delights of Chengdu, but once we move west I am not expecting much beyond greasy noodles, Tsampa, butter tea, mo-mo dumplings and stale yak's cheese ( and maybe stale yak if we get desperate).
Graham had been in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, in 1984. He hired a bicycle and pedalled out of town as far as the roadblock which controlled the traffic to Lhasa. He longed to go further; 20 years later he did.
We travelled by express bus directly to Dortsedo/Dardo (Ch. Kangding) on the edge of mountainous Kham. From there we used slower buses to progress through Tagong, Tawu, Drango, and Kandze (Ch Ganzi) to Derge, the last town before Tibet. In Derge we visited a temple printing-house which retained a stock of wood blocksof the complete Tibetan Buddhist scriptures. However, the end point of our journey turned out to be a the religious festival at Ya Chang where we were two Europeans among eighteen Chinese Buddhists and hundreds and hundreds of Tibetan devotees.
Kham has been politically part of China for a century but is still
Kangding/Dardo
The Dalai Lama stayed in this monastry in Kanding when he was travelling from Lahsa to Bejing in the 50s. ethnically chiefly Tibetan, although there is a large amount of Han immigration. The area was opened to tourism in 1998. We spent hours (days actually) on buses, comfortable ones and uncomfortable ones. We got too hot, too wet and too cold. We had flown from Hong Kong to Chengdu and then embussed to Kangding (Tib. Dartsedo), which is at the beginning of Kham,the Tibetan cultural area within Sichuan. It is politically separate from the official Tibetan Autonomous Region. It has been part of China for over 100 years but is still distinctively Tibetan. In Kangding the two cultures meet visibly in a town squeezed around a fast flowing river in a deep ravine. From there we went over snow covered passes to other towns - Tawu, Drange, Kandze, Derge, Yachang are their names in Tibetan but they have different names in Chinese: quite a challenge juggling guide books as Kham is described in both the Tibetan and Chinese guides. Things became progressively more and more Tibetan as we advanced along the road to Lhasa.
We spent time dealing with altitude adjustment (we wouldn't admit to altitude sickness of course), drawing pictures of the landscape (me), talking to the locals
Kangding/Dardo
The inside of the monastery shows the facade common to all Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. (Graham - I don't speak Chinese), visiting temples and sometimes taking part in ceremonies, climbing hills slowly, drinking tea, eating dinner. And we got to go to a Tibetan religious festival.
The food was wonderful: excellent fresh veggies, tofu, eggs, generally cooked to order and also rice, noodles, steamed buns. Tea drinking is big in Sichuan; the bamboo buildings of twenty years ago are now airconditioned rooms furnished with leather lounges, coffee tables and mobile TVs. The customer choose their tea from a menu and receives a glass and tealeaves (not cheap, at the price of a full dinner), but the nibbly nuts and the hot water are free. Sometimes the glass contains sugar lumps and dried fruit as well. The hot water keeps coming, so people sit and chat with friends, watch TV, or conduct business for hours on end. Tibetan monks like the scene too; one monk we met in a teahouse took us to his sister’s home and showed us snapshots of his monastery and the school there.
We hired a driver in a small van to take us to the religious festival. It was in a village which did not show on our maps
Kangding/Dardo
These tankas were hanging inside the monastry. or guide books; we had learnt about it from a Chinese nun we met whilst eating breakfast in a bus station café. The village turned out to be a great squish of mud-walled houses beside a river at the foot of a cliff; it sat on a wide plateau surrounded by snow-covered mountains. Hundreds and hundreds of red-clad monks and nuns had gathered to hear teachings and receive blessings from the Atu Lama. There was a vast encampment of yurts and colorful summer tents, and many, many bright flags marking out camping areas, parking, horse tethering, and the main arena. Our Chinese nun found us among hundreds of people and organized an audience with the Atu Lama for us. We also watched part of a dance drama which told of the exports of a mythical warrior of those parts. I sat with a group of Tibetan nuns who made me feel completely at home. It can be amazing how well communication can go with no common language. The only non-Tibetans were the nun, a small group of her students from Manchuria and us. What a privileged experience!
Video: Video: Kham Faces .
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