Ganden Monastery... the complex...

As viewed from the balcony outside of our room at the Monastery Guesthouse...

Ganden Monastery... incense vendors

Juniper in two differnt forms, or a type of Tibetan artemesia...

Ganden Monastery... low kora

A well worn trail leads up and around the back of the ridge behind the monastery. There are numerous meditation retreat huts and supposedly rocks rubbed for health or good luck, but we did not find these rocks. There are several rock carvings, several rock paintings, and a sky-burial site. Near the end, you will also find Tsongkhapa's hermitage site... a small meditation cave with several items of interest...

Ganden Monastery... low kora... high pass

Ganden Monastery... low kora

Coming around the point of the ridge, we made it over and through the pass, and took a tea break.

Ganden Monastery...low kora...butter

Towards the end of the kora there is a small bulding built into the stone hillside. This is Tsonkhapa's hermitage cave. Inside there are carved images of several important figures believed to have the power of speech. Tsongkhapa was the founder and first abbot of Ganden, and the founder of the Gelugpa order itself, and there are many images of him here. These butter sculptures are on display in the chapel enclosing the sacred carvings. After this site, the kora drops quickly down, back into the monastery complex.

Ganden Monastery... in the dog house

I thought it was a muppet at first, but turns out it was a real dog after all.

Ganden Monastery... peaks and chapels

Ganden Monastery... sculptures

The fellow with the blue bull's head is a protector deity named Dorje Jigje, and he is seen all over this monastery, as he is the favourite protector of the Gelugpa order, of which Ganden is the head monastery. A wrathful form of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, he is also known as the destoyer of Yama, the Lord of Death. He is blue with eight heads, the main one of which is a bull. He wears a garland of skulls around his neck and a belt of skulls around his waist, and holds a skull goblet and a flaying knife in two of his 34 arms. He tramples on eight Hindu gods, eight mammals and eight birds under his 16 feet.
The figure on the horse is another protector deity more specific to Ganden itself...
Food for thought.........

Hanging at the Barkhor for sunset...

Dyki at the New Mandala

Dyki had become a good friend by now, and I always liked to get her advice on my travel plans. She speaks English very well, and, more importantly, understands it very well too. I'm sure I was asking her about our upcoming plans to go to Drigung and Tidrum. And, I'm sure I had just ordered a mushroom masala and garlic naan... Mmmmmm..........

Lhasa... cheesing in our room at the Daxia...

I had my hair braided with colorful yarn and wrapped around my head like a crown. This is a very typical hair style in the country side in Tibet. If you wear this hair style in the city, everyone will think you are a country bumpkin... I have always loved country bumpkins in whatever country I have found them...

Tidrum Nunnery

From Lhasa, a four hour trip by public/pilgrim bus gets you to Tidrum Nunnery. Tidrum and Drigung Til Monastery are only about 12 miles from each other, so we planned to combine those visits, spending a few days at each place. Tidrum was our first stop, because that is where the bus took us first. With it's medicinal hotsprings it has a sweet location in a narrow gorge at the confluence of two rivers. The hotsprings were our main draw to this place. This small nunnery has strong connections with Yeshe Tsogyel, the wife of King Trisong Detsen, one of the most venerated figures from Tibetan Buddhist history. The head nun, or Kandro-la, the resident spiritual leader of the nunnery, is considered a reincarnation of Yeshe Tsogyel. The hotsprings are delightful, and were a highlight of our time in Tibet! There were 2 main pools, seperated by sex. They are natural pools, not lined with concrete, and the water is quite hot! Some of my favorite Tibetan moments were spent in the pool here. The whole nunnery was literally full of people on the day we arrrived, which happened to be a Saturday. We were the only foreigners... everyone else was Tibetan! We were lucky to find a spot to sleep for that night. The Kandro-la herself offered us a spot in a room next to hers! I was excited to take a dip in the pools, but did not know what to expect. I put on my swimsuit and headed down the trail. When I turned the corner to enter the pool area this is the sight I met: about 15-20 women, ranging in age from less than a year to 80 years old, all in various stages of dressing/undressing to bathe. No one else was wearing a swim suit. Some women were swimming or floating around the pool, some were sitting still meditating or chanting softly, others were actively bathing, scrubbing bodies and sudsing hair. The pool was lined with large rocks, and there were several in the middle of the pool also. These were used as cool out spots, and people took turns sitting on them, with their bodies half in and half out of the hot hot water. The water was so hot there were bubbles coming up from the bottom at the hottest point in the pool! Boiling!?! When I entered the area, all eyes turned onto me, as the foreigner and new comer. Several women came over immediately, smiling and talking sweetly to me. They offered to help me figure out the way things went around there, helped me undress, stash my clothes and towel in the right spot, and then showed me into the pool. People were very relaxed and languid and smiley. Most ladies when they saw me enter the pool swam over to say hello. Some older ladies got the idea to come help me bathe and before I knew it, I had 3 elderly ladies ladeling hot water over my shoulders and scrubbing my back. They were smiling and laughing as if they were caring for a baby. I could tell they were curious about what was underneath my bathing suit, but they would have to wait until my second visit to the pools before I decided to give in and go without. The whole experience left me feelilng like a part of a big family. I felt loved and cared for and excepted by these ladies. A circle of women is always a beautiful thing, but throw in a hot spring, a holy site, a beautiful natural setting and Tibetan warmth and you get pure magic! I was told that the men's pool could have used a little more magic, but even though the hygiene level was low on that side of the wall, the water felt just as healing. I recall one moment in particular... it is late at night and dark, the tub is full with about 10 women soaking, meditating and chanting quietly to themselves. Suddenly from the men's pool a low murmur begins to materialize through the mist, which gets louder and louder, until it becomes a full on chant. A group of 4 high monks, visiting from Lhasa, had entered the pool, and their chanting continued for the rest of the evening. Seeing these beautiful, timeless Tibetan faces swirling through the thick steam coming off the water, surrounded by the mesmerizing chanting and crystal clear night sky, and enveloped in the strong, warm healing waters, it was difficult to remember where I was in time. Was it present day 2006? It would have been just as easy to believe it was a thousand years in the past. We had such a fantastic time here at Tidrum that we wound up staying for 4 days. When they say medicinal water, it is quite true. Team hollar felt the effects after every bath. You come out of the pool with a feeling of euphoria and well-being, soft skin, and if you stay in for too long, a little faint even. I'm not sure which elements are present in the water, but it would be interesting to find out...

Tidrum Nunnery is a beautiful spot!!

Tidrum Nunnery...

Across the river from outside of our room.

Tidrum Nunnery...

Looking up the river from outside of our room.

Tidrum Nunnery... holy art

Another tradition in Tibetan Buddhism is to carve mantras onto slabs of rock. In certain places these slabs are then stacked up to eventually create whole walls of carved mantras. This spot was one such auspicious location. This spot was quite holy... there were carved slabs, carved yak horns, and hand made clay images left at this little altar.

Tidrum Nunnery... horsing around

As we were walking along the river we came up on a nun trying to chase her horses back down river, by sling shotting rocks at them. She quickly climbed away when she saw us coming, but we could understand why the horses were a little skittish.

another winter at the bird- tram, tunnel, and buckets....

Tidrum Nunnery... early morning scene as we start our hike

Looking across the river from just outside our room. This Tibetan family was just starting their morning too...It was quite cold that morning, but we started out on the trail right after our noodles. We were following a trail up a narrow river gorge for about 2 hours, where we would come out in a wide, high valley, surrounded by peaks. At the tip of this valley there was a monastery...Dranang Monastery. That is all the information we had as we set off that morning... what a wonderful trail it was...