Monastery Roadtrip, Part I: Samye

I was sick of organized tour groups, so I looked through my guidebook for places that it seemed like I could travel independently without a permit and tour group. Since those didn't seem to exist, then I looked for places it seemed that I could travel independently without getting caught. I decided on a trip to the Yarlung Valley, an area to the south of Lhasa along the Yarlung Tsangpo (Yarlung River), which flows down into India and becomes the Brahmaputra. The Yarlung Valley is thought to be where the original kingdoms of Tibet were established; my attraction to the area was the number of monasteries that sounded worth a visit.

I was also looking to get out of Lhasa - what had started off as a pleasant afternoon walk around Nam-Tso with a group of monks ended up with a bit too much attention from one of the monks involved. He had asked for my cell phone number and suggested we meet up in Lhasa. I didn't think anything of it, but within the next couple of days he had called me repeatedly asking when we could meet up and sent me several text messages saying things like "I like you very much." It was kind of making me feel uncomfortable, but I figured I was just overreacting - he was a monk, after all. Then I found out that while most monks have to take celibacy vows, this guy was a lama, and lamas have an elevated status in which they can accumulate wealth and aren't necessarily celibate (except for in the Gelupga order to which the Dalai Lama belongs). Great. It also could have been that he just wanted to make an American contact, but either way he was coming on way too strong. Getting out of Lhasa and into an area with no cell phone reception was sounding more and more appealing.

Anyway, the first leg of my trip was Samye Monastery, one of the most famous in the region. It's meant to have been built as a mandala, or representation of the Buddhist universe. However, it was severely damaged (as were most important monasteries) by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and is only now being extensively rebuilt. Most tourists go to Samye on a two-day tour with a Land Cruiser and guide, but I managed to get tickets on the pilgrim bus. The only drawback was that the bus left at 5:30am. I managed to get up and out of bed with time to spare; it turns out that I needed it. As I was walking to Barkhor Square to catch the bus, I spotted a police car parked right in front of the entrance to the square.

On a sidenote, the 40th anniversary of the Autonomous Region of Tibet being incorporated into the People's Republic of China is coming up in the beginning of September. When I came back from Nam-Tso I had noticed that every single building in town was flying at least one (if not 5) Chinese flag(s) - a forced show of allegiance to the "motherland." Not only that, but the Chinese government has taken the basic look of prayer flags (small red, green, blue, yellow and white flags along a white string) and made 40th anniversary flags with the Chinese crest and "1965-2005" decals, which they've strung up along all the main streets and highways. The police are also out in force, as I encountered in my attempt to catch an early morning bus. You can't walk half a block in Lhasa without seeing a uniformed goon giving you the staredown. Friends have told me that the Chinese government has not allowed any foreigners to enter Tibet since the 20th of August, and I noticed that they are building a giant stage in front of the Potala Palace with patriotic Chinese slogans painted on the backdrop and huge red and yellow totems.

So, maybe it wasn't the best time to try to travel independently and not get caught...


[1 - Forced display of patriotism to the homeland, 2 - Chinese imitation prayer flags to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the "liberation" of Tibet]

Anyway, I managed to slip into a side alley before the cop noticed me. It was dark and there were no streetlights, but eventually I found my way back out to the main road and onto the bus. I put my hood on over my head and ducked under the window as we drove out of town.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, and we got to Samye by 10am. I didn't try to get a room at the Monastery Guesthouse (I'd heard they check for permits), and instead found my way to a hotel on the edge of the small town next to the monastery. I spent most of the day wandering around the monastery complex; it's a lot more open and airy than a lot of the other monasteries I've been to, and the surrounding area is full of orchards and wheat fields. The monks were also particularly friendly; I sat down with a few and chatted for a bit. Once again, my Lonely Planet book came in handy - once I'd run out of the few sentences of Tibetan I knew, I could start a sign language conversation by pointing to pictures of the places in the guidebook that I'd been and asking which ones they'd visited.


[At Samye Monastery: 1 - Pilgrim adding yak butter to a lamp, 2 - a senior monk]


[Friendly monks]


[1 - The caretaker of one of the chapels, 2 - Prayer flags outside the monastery walls]

Later that afternoon I hiked up Hepo Ri, the hill where the Indian sage Guru Rinpoche apparently vanquished the demons of Tibet in order to pave the way for the introduction of Buddhism. It was a pretty easy hike and had great views of the monastery. Unfortunately on the way there I passed another PSB official and had to hide behind a tractor for 5 minutes until he finished questioning a tour group and went away. On the way back down to my hotel I could see everyone staring at me; I'm used to people staring at me because I'm one of the few foreigners in town, but in Samye I couldn't brush it off as easily. It seemed like I had a big sign on my forehead that said "No tour group, no permit - Fine me!"


[1 - View of the Yarlung Valley from Hepo Ri, 2 - Hepo Ri itself]


[View of Samye from Hepo Ri; the central building, the Utse, is meant to represent the core of the universe]

Back at the hotel, I felt a bit lonely and was tempted to lock myself up in my room and finish reading the book I'd brought along in order to occupy my attention until I could fall asleep. But my biggest pet peeve is when people lock themselves up in their hotel room and don't venture outside to see the place they've spent so much money to travel to. Hence my number one rule of travel: go outside. You never know who or what you'll run into. So I sat outside on the stairs, overlooking the courtyard where the family who owned the hotel was going about their daily business (washing clothes, doing dishes, playing around). Some teenage boys were playing with the Tibetan version of a hacky-sack: short plastic streamers knotted around a couple of washers. I decided to go and join them - even though I really sucked, at least it broke the ice. By the end of the night I was sharing the family's evening snack of potatoes and chatting with the girlfriend of one of the brothers about school and my travels in China.

The next morning I got up and hurried back to the monastery for the 7:30am return bus. I slipped through the gate (literally - it was still locked and I could barely shimmy through the opening). Turns out that there was no need to hurry - nobody could find the driver for an hour and a half. When we finally found the guy selling tickets for the bus, he informed us that it should leave around 10. In the meanwhile I hung out with a nun and her relatives, who offered me tea and made sure I didn't get left behind.

So at 10:30 we were on our way. The ride was a bit bumpy, compounded by the fact that I had no seat. A young couple let me share theirs, until we got to the Tsetang bridge and the driver instructed me to go duck down in the back and hide my face while we passed the security checkpoint. It was a lucky thing that I had got on the pilgrim bus, because it turns out that we were making stops at Trandruk Monastery and the Yumbulagang, two places that I had planned to backtrack and hitch to. I didn't get to go into the monastery (there was a PSB official, so the driver told me to go lie down on the back seat while everyone else went in). I did however get to hike up the Yumbulagang, as the PSB official guarding it was taking a bathroom break when we arrived. The Yumbulagang is reputed as the oldest building in Tibet, although most of it had been destroyed (I'll give you one guess by whom...) and rebuilt. It was originally a fort for early Yarlung Valley kings, but now it's been converted into more of a chapel. I was just happy that I got a free ride there instead of having to hitch, and having a bus full of pilgrims on the hike up made it an even more interesting experience. I helped an old lady down most of the way (although I think she was humoring me - she probably could have made it on her own, considering she got up there herself). After we got down, the young couple who had let me share their seat earlier and their family treated me to a lunch of yak momos (breaded dumplings). Luckily the PSB official was too engrossed in a game of cards to notice me on the way out, either.


[1 - Pilgrims hiking up to the Yumbulagang, 2 - The old woman who let me help her on the way down]

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