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Published: August 17th 2010
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Why do we put up with the long flight to China, the steambath-like weather of Chongqing (although we had a wonderful time there), and the sometimes terrifying and always uncomfortable bus rides? We had our answer when we woke up Monday morning in the wonderful Tibetan town of Ganzi (Chinese name) or Garze (Tibetan name). At 3400m elevation, surrounded by snow and rock peaks up to nearly 6000m high, in the beautiful wide valley of the Yalong River, with many temples and lamasaries nearby, and populated by friendly Tibetans, this was indeed what we had come to see and experience.
The local population seem to be mainly monks from the surrounding lamasaries, furniture makers, or farmers. Harvest is in full swing now. Some kind of beans, barley or wheat, and potatoes are the main crops. The shops cater to this local clientele. It is a pleasure to shop for prayer flags and wall hangings and jewelery in places that are not set up mainly for tourists. The seem to have just enough visitors here to appreicate us, but not enough to change their local ways because of us.
The people speak mainly Tibetan here, although most people in shops
and restaurants speak Chinese as well. They are consistently friendly, wanting to greet us in English with "Hello" or more commonly in Tibetan, with "chassay day lay" (a poor phonetic rendering). The kids apparently learn Chinese in school, and those from third grade on up have enjoyed speaking with Jacob when they find he is fluent.
There is a beautiful lamasary above the town, and we climbed up there twice yesterday, testing our lungs in the high altitude. In the evening, we were trested to wonderful views of the surrounding mountains ni all directions. We climbed above the temple and the residences to a high alpine meadow, where the views were even better. Up there we also found prayer flags arranged in the form of a round tent, about 50 - 100 feet diameter. The sound of the flags flapping in the wind was like a river running over rocks or the surf.
On the way down the hill towards town, we passed a small neighborhood temple and were invited to look by a group of people hanging out in front. pretty soon we saw that they had a number of wooden chests on the ground and that
Kids on the road to Garze Gompa
This was on the hill just above town several of the people, including both men and women older than me, were strapping these to their backs and taking them inside. Jacob and I decided to help out and we carried these heavy items up a ladder to be stored in a room upstairs in the small temple. It is possible that these had been used as part of the greeting for the local living Buddha, who had visited the temple up the hill earlier in the day. At any rate our work was appreciated (Jacob carried two of them up there, and it was not easy). They invited us to go around the temple spinning the prayer wheels that surrounded it.
Today we hired a driver to take us to two more lamasaries west of town. In the first one, we were shown around by a monk who opened the temples with a huge old fashined key. We saw statues of the Buddha and many bodhisativas, butter sculptures, huge rooms where the monks meditate and pray, and much more. The monks, many of whom are very young, were working on their prayers in various ways, including playing a foot stomping game we had read about.
If
all the people are exceptionally friendly, the monks at the templws are especially so. These experiences are nothing short of magical for us.
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Grant
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awsome blog.
You guys are having a great trip and it is fun to read about it. It just sounds fantastic, Thanks for sharing it. Great pictures too. Grant