The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.
Bellies full of mantao and lips slick with butter tea (breakfast of champions) five students and I began our day long hike in the cool clear of a typical eight-thirty in the Lhasa spring morning.
The day went something like Walrus' conversation: dodging herds of yak-cows and motorbikes we walked singing and chatting along the road until we came to our first stop: Songtsen Gampo's tomb. Eye's carved and painted on stones, dark, low-ceiling rooms of butter lamps, incence, and rotting tangkas, blossoming peach trees, stray animals and monks, whitewash, leering gods and stale offerings, hardened tsampa bricks, rickety ladders to musty rooms of mumbling monks and rustling pages of scripture, ever the breath-taking clear view of Lhasa city from high above.
Shoes and ships and sealing wax...
A few laughs, pictures, and wrong turns to sheer drops amidst the fluttering of prayer flags got us to a place where we could rest in the dust and thorns and eat some oranges, pears, and brownies (my contribution). We clamber up and on to a small hermitage of a nearby nunnery where we are greeted by the ferocious barking of dogs and a virtually empty temple. A lone, shaven head nun unlocks an upper room for us, offering us a view of some larger than life golden statues, other dank, dingy rooms, and a drink of some cool water, said to bring luck, from a spring higher in the mountain.
Stumbling and sliding on the gravely pebbles down the mountain to a flat peak where we scare away a family of vultures and have a completely unobstructed view of the whole city makes a good place for a lunch. Mantao and pickled vegetables being the special of the day. More chatter, pictures, a Chinese song dedicated to me, and a sigh at the long way down.
Cabbages and kings...
A painfully labourious and ridiculously silly route down the mountain provides much entertainment to a group of nuns from the nearby nunnery who line up to caution us away from the certain doom to which we are slipping and point us in the direction of the path. More oranges and pears by a barely existant stream before dragging ourselves back up the hill and pushing open an unlocked door leading into the nunnery compound. Greeted by a nun whom I've had tea with before we are offered a sagging bench in the shade. Sitting, piled together on the bench, giggling and sighing and rubbing our feet, the piercing view of Lhasa almost convinces one that everything is right with the world.
A brief glance to the left at the rows of squeaky prayer wheels and piles of shoes outside of the temple from which is birthed the low moans of scripture being read quickly wipes away such false convictions.
Dim rooms of dusty fabric and dozens of shaven headed women with glassy eyes whose voices are scratchy from chanting and fingers worn from turning pages, long forgotten chambers of repeated statues, solar water boilers, potted flowers, cranky yaks, and finally on the dusty road back home.
The time has come... to talk of many things...
When and how will they ever hear His voice in the midst of all that?
Shoes and ships and sealing wax...
A few laughs, pictures, and wrong turns to sheer drops amidst the fluttering of prayer flags got us to a place where we could rest in the dust and thorns and eat some oranges, pears, and brownies (my contribution). We clamber up and on to a small hermitage of a nearby nunnery where we are greeted by the ferocious barking of dogs and a virtually empty temple. A lone, shaven head nun unlocks an upper room for us, offering us a view of some larger than life golden statues, other dank, dingy rooms, and a drink of some cool water, said to bring luck, from a spring higher in the mountain.
Stumbling and sliding on the gravely pebbles down the mountain to a flat peak where we scare away a family of vultures and have a completely unobstructed view of the whole city makes a good place for a lunch. Mantao and pickled vegetables being the special of the day. More chatter, pictures, a Chinese song dedicated to me, and a sigh at the long way down.
Cabbages and kings...
A painfully labourious and ridiculously silly route down the mountain provides much entertainment to a group of nuns from the nearby nunnery who line up to caution us away from the certain doom to which we are slipping and point us in the direction of the path. More oranges and pears by a barely existant stream before dragging ourselves back up the hill and pushing open an unlocked door leading into the nunnery compound. Greeted by a nun whom I've had tea with before we are offered a sagging bench in the shade. Sitting, piled together on the bench, giggling and sighing and rubbing our feet, the piercing view of Lhasa almost convinces one that everything is right with the world.
A brief glance to the left at the rows of squeaky prayer wheels and piles of shoes outside of the temple from which is birthed the low moans of scripture being read quickly wipes away such false convictions.
Dim rooms of dusty fabric and dozens of shaven headed women with glassy eyes whose voices are scratchy from chanting and fingers worn from turning pages, long forgotten chambers of repeated statues, solar water boilers, potted flowers, cranky yaks, and finally on the dusty road back home.
The time has come... to talk of many things...
When and how will they ever hear His voice in the midst of all that?
