Monday, November 3, 2008

If it's Wednesday, it must be time for a monastery - 8 October 2008

Once more into the Land Rovers. I'm not sure how other groups handle it, but we're pretty well sticking in the same Land Rovers we stared in (which is fine).

A long drive to Sakya, to view the Sakya Monastery. Mostly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, it's nowhere near as majestic as it used to be. I, sadly, am officially monasteried out - it says so in my diary.

There was one interesting room, that regrettably was closed. Supposedly it has visions of a Buddhist hell. I guess I need a little TV-MA to liven things up.

One funny thing, though. We walked through a hall where the monks were chanting. At least most of them were. One monk was asleep when we walked by and we saw one of his buddies give him a violent nudge to wake him up. Of course consciousness was only temporary, and we watched him battle to stay awake with amusement.

The hotel was relatively spartan, and the service at the restaurant was suspect - evidently the waitress didn't speak Chinese or Tibetan, and the food wasn't all that good either.

There was a nice, hot shower, though, and that makes up for a lot at this point.

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