the awesome secret

a weekend out of lhasa city and into the vast and rocky wilderness of tibet. a jeep full of befriended expats. laughter. yumbulagang palace, the first palace of tibet. trandruk temple, the first temple in tibet. and samye monastery, an ice cold boat ride from the main road but reputably the most beautiful and eclectic monastery of tibet.

on a cold saturday morning in January we drive out of lhasa, pass gongkhar airport and follow the river to tsetang. we arrange our visitor permits for samye monastery. share a chinese lunch and visit probably the smallest palace in the world: yumbulagang. built on a mountain this two room palace symbolises the ‘awesome secret’ (a bunch of buddhist scriptures). beautiful views over yarlung valley, holy mountains full of prayer flags and a cuddly silver palace cat. after some tibetan sweet tea – to warm us up a bit – we set out for trandruk monastery.

some bargaining later we all walk into the temple compound. as all monasteries and palaces in tibet (or china), trandruk is rebuild after being desecrated during the cultural revolution. the temple houses a pearl thangka depicting sakyamuni buddha. hidden in one of the smaller rooms upstairs. so beautiful, so serene.

that evening we enjoy a luxury dinner in our hotel. our dining room doubles as a temple shrine. the food is delicious, the beer tastes good after a day in the outdoors and the heating makes us all sleepy.

in the morning our driver takes us to the yarlung tsangpo river crossing for samye monastery. this river ‘crossing’ took us 1,5 hour in a wooden boat up river. frozen feet, warm smiles. we spot some endangered birds (the black-necked crane). across the river we all get in a pick-up truck. fifteen minutes later we see a glimpse of a red stupa. samye. the monastery is laid out as a mandala, four stupa’s represent the four heavenly kings. what a beautiful place. mixture of cultures, mixture of people, enjoying lunch under a warm winter sun. a day lingering at this chinese, indian, tibetan architectural masterpiece. pitch-dark kora’s in the temple, ‘rabbit’ holes with hidden buddha’s, vivid wall paintings, thousands of buddhist scriptures, meditation rooms with a view.

the boat ride is much more fun on our way back. the sun is shining and the river takes us across river in less than an hour. on our way home we see lots of sand dunes and dream of ‘surfing’ these dunes on plastic bags. a jeep full of fulfilled but exhausted friends. we had fun. lots of fun. but we are just to tired to talk.