Monastery Crawl

Trip Start Sep 15, 2006
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7
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Trip End Oct 29, 2006


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Thursday, September 28, 2006

As we got out of the mountains we began a monastery crawl towards Lhasa. First we visited the Tashilhunpo in Shigatse, the home of the Chinese appointed Panchen Lama (the Dali Lama recognized reincarnated Panchen Lama has been detained by the Chinese for "reeducation"). Here are pictures of a temple in the monastery, a monk there, prayer wheels and yak oil lights that are everywhere in monasteries, and a local spinning some prayer wheels.
Tashilhunpo Monastery
Tashilhunpo Monastery
 Tashilhunpo Monk
Tashilhunpo Monk
 More prayer wheels
More prayer wheels
 Yak oil lights
Yak oil lights
 Lady at prayer wheels
Lady at prayer wheels
From Shigatse we drove to Gyantse where there is another monastery.
Gyantse
Gyantse
 Gyantse Monastery
Gyantse Monastery
There were a lot more tourists at the Tashilhunpo monastery than Gyantse. I was able to find a chapel in the monastery in Gyantse where there was no one but me and a monk filling tea lights with yak oil and chanting. I sat there for about 20 minutes totally undisturbed. It was so peaceful I felt like I had melted into a puddle!
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