Xiahe is a Tibetan town with 50 % of the population being Tibetans. The town is known for the Labrang Monastery. Hundreds of monks live in the monastery so you see them all over town.
We got up at 5 am to see some of the monks and locals doing their morning ritual which is walking around the temple area, a circle of 3 kilometres. Part of the ritual is to spin hundreds of prayer wheels. Some people where also doing a ritual where they walked a little and then laid down on the stomach and moved the arms and legs in circles before getting up walking a few steps before laying down down again. This you'll do to show your gratitude if you have had your wish or wishes granted.
After the walk we went out to find breakfast but there wasn't anything open at 7 am. So we relaxed in the hotel until 8.30 and went back to the restaurant from last night we knew they had good pancakes with chocolate sauce.
Most people from the group got together to get at guided tour at the Labrang monastery. The monastery is one of the six major Tibetan monasteries of the Gelugpa order - the Yellow Hat sect of the Tibetan Budddhism. One of the young monks showed us around. It's a special day in the town today so a lot of monks were inside the monastery and we were also allowed to walk through one of the buildings were several hundred of them were gathered to pray. Normally a little under 200 monks are connected to this monastery where two of their main focus areas are philosophy, medicine, theology, astrology and law. It takes 16 years to study the Tibetan herbal medicine. You can start to become a monk when you're 7 years old and it takes 25 years before you're a Gelugpa/Yellow hatted monk.
It smells quite bad inside the different temples because they use yak butter in their candles. Just a very stuffy and stale smell. They also make flowers and decorations out of yak butter and we saw one room with these decorations. They smell really bad but they're are very beautiful with lots of colors. They use the yak butter to make the flowers because it's difficult to get flowers up here during the winter. The flowers always have to be in a bouquet of 5-6 colors so it's all very colorful.
After the monastery Malene went for a walk in town with Muriel and had a rest in the hotel. Mikkel walked around with David before coming back to the hotel to relax before dinner in a small Tibetan restaurant.
We got up at 5 am to see some of the monks and locals doing their morning ritual which is walking around the temple area, a circle of 3 kilometres. Part of the ritual is to spin hundreds of prayer wheels. Some people where also doing a ritual where they walked a little and then laid down on the stomach and moved the arms and legs in circles before getting up walking a few steps before laying down down again. This you'll do to show your gratitude if you have had your wish or wishes granted.
After the walk we went out to find breakfast but there wasn't anything open at 7 am. So we relaxed in the hotel until 8.30 and went back to the restaurant from last night we knew they had good pancakes with chocolate sauce.
Most people from the group got together to get at guided tour at the Labrang monastery. The monastery is one of the six major Tibetan monasteries of the Gelugpa order - the Yellow Hat sect of the Tibetan Budddhism. One of the young monks showed us around. It's a special day in the town today so a lot of monks were inside the monastery and we were also allowed to walk through one of the buildings were several hundred of them were gathered to pray. Normally a little under 200 monks are connected to this monastery where two of their main focus areas are philosophy, medicine, theology, astrology and law. It takes 16 years to study the Tibetan herbal medicine. You can start to become a monk when you're 7 years old and it takes 25 years before you're a Gelugpa/Yellow hatted monk.
It smells quite bad inside the different temples because they use yak butter in their candles. Just a very stuffy and stale smell. They also make flowers and decorations out of yak butter and we saw one room with these decorations. They smell really bad but they're are very beautiful with lots of colors. They use the yak butter to make the flowers because it's difficult to get flowers up here during the winter. The flowers always have to be in a bouquet of 5-6 colors so it's all very colorful.
After the monastery Malene went for a walk in town with Muriel and had a rest in the hotel. Mikkel walked around with David before coming back to the hotel to relax before dinner in a small Tibetan restaurant.
 |
| Morning walk - prayer wheels outside of the temple |
 |
| Still early and quiet |
 |
| View from the hill - temple and roofs |
 |
| Temple and prayer wheels |
 |
| Prayer wheels |
 |
| Panoram of the town with pagodas, temples and prayer wheels |
 |
| Temples with prayer wheels |
 |
| Pet goat of the city looking at the construction workers |
 |
| Constructions workers in suits |
 |
| Tai chi |
 |
| Breakfast |
 |
| Temple sightseeing |
 |
| Yellow hats |
 |
| The way to study Tibetan medicine |
 |
| Books for the studies |
 |
| One of the temples |
 |
| Malene and Lotti |
 |
| Beautiful but smelly yak butter decorations |
 |
| Animal decorations for parades |
 |
| The monks's boots |
 |
| A new pope? |
 |
| Xiahe street |
 |
| Xiahe street |
 |
| Students in the streets |
 |
| Our hotel |
 |
| Carl, Autumn and Kate in the Tibetan restaurant |
 |
| Muslim tea |
Ingen kommentarer:
Send en kommentar