6:30a.m.: wake up, roll around in bed, get ready, and pull myself downstairs for a hike to a former sky burial site.
The site we first visited was for common people and higher up at the top of the hill/mountain thingy was whee the higher Lamas were buried. The trail of ropes and fabric up the hill from the burial site were to guide the deceased to the heavens.
These are poor people's muni stones, they make these piles instead of pay to have the stone carved.
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Sky burials are when the family takes the body to the sacred site, cuts the body into pieces, and leaves it out for large birds to eat. It's like the final gift the person can give, and in return the birds fly the body to the heavens. What the birds can't or don't eat is burned.
The site we visited was put out of commission by the Chinese government because it was too close to the town to be considered sanitary and there are less large birds in the area than before. Knives and Buddhist rosaries could be found around the site.
We climbed to the higher site where the view was beautiful though mildly clouded. It was a rather dangerous climb...
The climb down was hindered only by loose rocks and a rope to the heavens wrapping itself around my ankle on a narrow path. Btw, if you ever see a sky burial site, don't just walk onto it, you need permission from a Lama to visit any.
We regrouped with everybody after breakfast and moved on to Labrang Monastery Our tour guide monk was a very shy, nervous, but excited 22 year old who I could only understand about 40% of what he said. He was adorable though. Entering one of the Temple he said, "there's some great shopping in here..." big smile, "I'm just kidding, you can't buy any of this." then he laughed to himself on and off over the next 20 minutes. His accent was strongly Indian and on occasion I'm sure he wasn't speaking English.
The temple we entered first was built in 1709...or the entire monastery started then...it was rough to follow...
Labrang Monastery is the 6th largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery I believe, with six colleges of education. The school of Philosophy is the largest with more than 1000 monks in it. the children at the monastery mainly study scripture until a certain age when they can enroll in the colleges.
The Yellow Hat Sect is one of the more strict sects. Other sects like the Black Hat and some Red Hat sects, can marry and leave the monastery after they finish studying or after a certain amount of time. There are many branches within the different color of hats' sects. This monastery was Gelugpa, Yellow Hat. At some point in their career the monks meditate for three months straight. The rooms they use for this are too small to lay don in, only sitting, and they only get one meal a day.
In the monastery there is a building where they display gifts and things acquired over the trips, among the things on display was a dinosaur skull, elephant bone and tusk, Tibetan horns, and so on.
One of the last buildings we visited was a large prayer room where the monks were all saying a mantra and there was drumming and horns being played inside rooms with Tankas, Buddha's, and Stupas with ashes and relics of past Lamas.
These are made almost entirely out of yak butter. They are used in a parade.
We rode horses at a Tibetan home in the countryside. The horses were not the best trained and gave you the stink eye if you stopped them from eating grass along the way. Some of them would get in little fights. Mine tried to kick another one that was behind it because it got really angry when it couldn't eat the grass. The second group to ride got halfway out then got caught in a rainstorm. Of course they had nothing by complaints when they got back to the house.
While waiting for them to return, my group drank Yak Milk Tea-it was really just milk with a tiny bit of tea, some sugar and some yak butter. When the rain stopped we quickly made out way down a very slippery mud road to the bus. One of the second group guys got bucked by his horse and then slipped on his way back to the bus to get covered in mud.
In the crowd I seemed to be confusing people again. I don't know why exactly but I think its still because nobody can tell what race I am. a woman grabbed my bottle of water, shook my arm, and stared at me-wordlessly asking for it I guess. I said she could have it in chinese which she clearly did not understand-we have gone several places in China where Chinese doesn't really work for proper communication. She poured the water out when I gave it to her, the reason coming after the Living Buddhas had left. the local people all raced to try to fill bags, bottles, and other vessels with the medicine.
From there we walked up the hill of the monastery to a stone courtyard where a cluster of monks all sat reciting scripture with a yellow hatted disciplinarian standing over them.
