Flight from Winter

2015-02-25 Tuesday

I had judged my coal consumption pretty well,as I completely ran ou t of coal the day before my flight to India. This meant that the stove went out in the early afternoon. As a result when I got up on the 17th, the roof of my boat was a flourish of ice and frost patterns. Quite impressive. Then of course, once I started travelling, everything was enclosed and generally too hot for me - a taxi, the train, the underground, Heathrow Terminal 4. All in all, a demonstation of the distance between winter and the layers of protection we put in place for ourselves.

When I got to Heathrow, I realised that I had not previously been to T4 - all my previous flights had been out of T3. As always, I got there with bags of time to spare, so among other things, I went up to the observation deck and spent a little time looking at plane preparation and the lights of Heathrow. A pretty sight.

Then collected at Delhi airport for transfer to the hotel. Sorted out an ATM that worked with my currency cards - only the forth one I tried.

And so to bed, having left winter behind me.

Trouble with Traffic

So off on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. This is a very old city that was only really accessible to the rest of the world from the 1920's onwards. The core of the city is the old city - a one mile square area, surrounded by a moat, with walls and gates adding to the original security of the city. Adding in the advent of motorised traffic has meant that one direction of traffic runs on the road just inside the moat, while the other direction runs on the road just outside the moat. Tie in the fact that there is only at most one bridge across the moat on each side of the square, and you have the start of a difficult puzzle in order to get about the city. The outside of the old city seems to have its streets modelled on the Fishbone cause and effect diagrams, which does not help with learning where to go to get to where you want to. Finally the system to convey the public around is unique to the city. There are tuk-tuks, but the majority of bulk traffic is conducted in pick up trucks equipped with a long bench one each side. These act as communal taxis and buses, but do not run to fixed routes, or even regular routes. They need to be flagged down in the street, at which point the destination and the fare is negotiated. This may involve agreement as to the route, but depends on additional people filling up the vehicle, so can involve substantial waits while the vehicle fills up.

All in all a complicated travel system, and one I never really got a handle on during my time in Chiang Mai. As a consequence, I did much of my tourism here on foot, and within the radius of foot travel.

A real prayer tree, Wat Lok Molee. Each leaf, gold coloured, has a prayer inscribed on it.

One of the places I did visit was a Wat Lok Molee, Amphoe Muang. This is very close to the old city moat, and hence the tourist area. It was a royal temple of great importance for one of the Thai dynasties. It is still maintained, with a population of monks, and some small numbers of locals attending and offering sacrifices there. However, it is very quiet and over the two and a half hours I was there, there were possibly as many as a dozen other people there. One of the really nice things about this Wat was the information board which started off almost apologetically "An old and significant site, there is no record of the temple's founding date, but its name first appeared in historical texts in 1367".
By contrast, visiting the main Wat outside Chiang Mai, which is on a mountain completely surrounded by forest, I was astounded by the noise, rather than the quiet. This was due to both the cicadas (at least two varieties, judging from the sounds) and another insect. Though I did not get to see one of these other insects, I was told that they are very small. They make up for this by the volume of their call - they sounded like jet engines spooling up ready for takeoff.

Silence is Snow Coloured

Plant and animal life on the Tibetan Plateau is very sparse, but highly varied. On the run in to our campsite last night, we saw marmots contesting, displaying, and just going about their lives; a number of small hamsters with grey fur turning to greenish on their backs, with little black and white collars; a small gazelle; two foxes; two buzzards; and a large number of small birds.

This does have implications when trekking, particularly if on one's own, as I was for much of the day. The day is completely silent, except for the very occasional sound of the odd small bird; the even more occasional sound of the odd insect - mainly solitary bees; and (when getting within half a mile of human habitation) dogs barking. But mostly silence. It is difficult to imagine just how deep the silence is until you have experienced it. There is no sound.

This was particularly the case today because this is a very slow group: normally I am one of the slowest in a group (and usually THE slowest) but this time I am the fastest - just a question of keeping going and not stopping.  It did mean I was walking by myself for much of the time. Add in glorious sunshine; high altitude; no wind; snow covered mountains - what more could one ask for?

We only covered 16Km in 7 1/2 hours, so it was pretty slow - though we did have a 1K ascent to a pass at 4600m. We are camped just below the the pass which was the first time I have seen a golden stupa.

Overnight and this morning I had slight effects of the altitude - very minor headache; sinusitis; and mouth and throat very dry. The bottle of pee I generated during the night, froze solid (estimated temperatures -8oC).

This picture captures everything about why I am doing what I am doing.

Amnye Machen

Finally set off for the trek part way round Amnye Machen - one of the Buddhist Great Protectors. I have been looking forward to this as one of the highlights of my entire trip, though I realised as some point that there is only one thing that can make this a highlight, or a disaster for that matter, and that is me. I finally got to meet the people I will be trekking with at the offices of the travel agency on Saturday, together with the guide for the trip. We sorted out the itinerary; some of the equipment being supplied by the travel agency, including measuring me in one of the sleeping bags to ensure that it was long enough. We then chatted and agreed to meet on Sunday in order to purchase the food for the trip. (This is one thing that I have found odd, compared to other things I have done - the trip (and ones like it here) all expect the food to be purchased by the participants, with aid from the guide.

On Sunday, four of us were traipsing round a Chinese "Life Style Market". In essence this is a supermarket, but a big one and one that is well up market for the Chinese market. We bought fruit, both fresh and dried; an absolutely huge loaf (that was to survive all six days of the trek, and there was still about 45% of it left); various sausages; noodles; rice; biscuits; custard buns, chinese style; and a whole range of vegatables - spring onions, chinese green leaf, cucumbers; and a large variety of sauces - soy, spicy, and so on.

On Monday it all kicked off. Though the organisation was well up to what I have come to expect from Tibetan organisations - everything gets done, but it's never clear by whom, or how. The driver (of a Toyota Land Cruiser, what else) picked me up, but managed to leave at my hostel, the representative of the travel agency. She then had to take a taxi to her offices, but had no money, so had to borrow off the driver of our vehicle. We then took all the equipment from the office - cooking equipment, tents, gas cylinders, insulating mattresses, sleeping bags, blankets, all the food we had bought - plus the equipment of the couple I was going to be trekking with from their room in the hotel. We also left in the offices the surplus equipment of the couple (a German couple Lena and Sheng (he being German-Chinese)).

Then everything loaded into the 4x4 which with five of us, plus all the equipment we had, completely filled the vehicle.

Truck stop - Tibetan style

Then we set off on a typical journey in this part of the world to get to Amnye Machen. First of all a drive of about 600Km on fairly decent roads, though most of them were single lane. Then a drive of about 50Km on what might be considered a reasonable rural farm road - it was not essential to have a 4x4, but without one, drivers would have to be very cautious. Then into a small Tibetan town to meet our horseman, who was supplying the horses and the yaks for the trek. The last 15Km to where the horseman's family were camped did need a 4x4 - and even a land cruiser was taking it very gingerly. The family is a nomadic one, with a large number of yak, a motor cycle, and a large number of dogs.

We had a meal, socialized with the family, and then erected the tents and went to bed.

It's raining in Xining

Today, like most of the last three days, has seen steady, relentless rain in Xining. It is promised to be much the same for the next few days. I'm not mad keen on cities; Chinese cities especially; and Chinese cities in the rain most particularly. Things can only get better - I start my trek on Monday, and Billy Connelly's proverb will start to come into play - "There's no such thing as bad weather; just inappropriate clothing". I have been warned by someone who lives here, and has travelled fairly extensively in this area, that this trek will be tough - partly because it is still early in the season. I have been thrown by knowledge of the trekking season in Nepal - which is in its prime during May and August. Here, some 1250Km further North, there is still snow on the hills to a comparatively low level - about 5800m. Doing my trek does mean that I won't be publishing anything until at least 2012-06-03. I am currently dividing my luggage into two parts - to take on the trek, and to leave here at the hostel for the duration of the trek. It is looking as though I can exactly split my luggage - so I'll be carrying less than 10.5Kg.

In between the rain I managed, yesterday, to get to the Tibetan Medical Cultural Museum. This is a splendid brand new museum, a fairly long way out of Xining, containing a great deal of the medical aspects of Tibetan culture. It does also hold a new Thangka - the largest in the world. It is 640+m long (for comparison - the Bayeux tapestry is about 70m long), and has to be displayed as a serpentine path, doubling back on itself multiple times. It has been done by some of the world's greatest Thangka painters, and is undoubtedly a masterpiece. It displays the history, chronology, creation myths, religious stories, and many other aspects of Tibetan culture. Walking the Thangka is a slightly frustrating experience - one keeps thinking, somewhere after the half way point "I must be getting very near the end" continually. The creation of the Thangka is very much Chinese inspired and does both have curious omissions and some delightful "Chinglish" in the display captions. The lineage of a certain office contains (to use computer terminology) a "off by one" error, though other comparable lineages are complete. The best display caption was the one describing a panel showing the "38 Dainties". This was curious, because adjacent captions were correct, but this was the only incorrect caption. It should have read of course "38 Deities".

No matter how good a display, and how great the Thangka; nonetheless it is a museum, and a tourist attraction.  I find this very sad, because the contents of the museum are actually very sparse, considering the breadth and width of Tibetan culture. Also, the Chinese have managed (for me) to completely kill the culture in putting it in a museum. The nearest comparison I can think of is Westminster Abbey. This can be considered a museum; it certainly is a major tourist attraction; but the crucial difference is that Westminster Abbey is also still a functioning Christian establishment, fulfilling its original and intended purpose. This keeps it alive, in a way that Buddhism, and Tibetan culture is not within this museum.

It's still raining.

Dalai Lama's 75th Birthday celebration in London

Yesterday was a day that provided a great deal of emotional variation.  I was moored in Tottenham, and went to the Dalai Lama's 75th birthday celebrations, and then on to Samye Dzong for Chenrezig practice in the evening.  This involved using most forms of public transport in London - walking to Tottenham Hale tube station; catching the tube to Vauxhall; a bus to the park next to the Imperial War Museum - where the birthday event was held; then a bus to Elephant & Castle, and a further one on to Bermondsey.  Then the return by bus to Liverpool Street, and then train to Tottenham Hale, with the attendant walk back to the boat.  In the process both my Oyster card and my bus pass got a good work out.

Overnight, before going off, my boat had suffered the attentions of free runners, at about midnight, and 2am - waking me up both times, and ensuring that I was sleep deprived when I had to get up for the things I was doing on Saturday.

The birthday event was Tibetan culture, representatives of the Tibetan government in exile; monks from one of the monastries refounded in India; stalls selling Tibetan related material, food and drink stalls, and other miscellaneous stalls.

The first thing that struck me forcibly - getting there early and watching people setting up - was the contrast between the Tibetan culture, and the Buddhist sense of peace and compassion in a park setting; next to the Imperial War Museum.  I spent some time trying to get a photo that would bring these two things into visible contrast, but have only partially succeeded - it was impossible to get a photo that would show the sense of contrast and compare that I felt.

I said hello to Isabel who was setting up her books - if you haven't read any of her books go out and buy them!!

Part of the variety of experience during the day was getting very hot and bothered, wandering round watching the entertainments and the people and taking photos in the direct sunlight.  Isobel came up with cooled water and a lavender volatile spray, both of which came as blessed relief after the sun.

As always, the Tibetan people, religion, and culture brought a twist to my heart, but coupled with a degree of sadness.  The last time I saw anything like this was in Ladakh where the Tibetans are a refugee people as they are in this country.  So I was glad to see the celebrations, but sad that Tibetan culture is heading to be a splinter culture, nutured and sustained by enthusiasts otherwhere than Tibet.   During the afternoon I met up with Helen and Mark who were down for the day in London, and also bumped into Lama Zangmo, the director of Samye Dzong in London.  Very pleasant to meet with them and catch up to a degree.

Chenrezig puja in the evening, at the new site for Samye Dzong, which I had not visited before, so I needed to find it and a route to it.  As a result I got there very early, and had time to try out the restaurant on the corner of Spa Road, which was virtually deserted at that time, but was a very pleasant meal.

By the time I got back it was some fourteen hours later than I had started out, and I was physically drained.

Choices and Consequences

(Many more pictures on Facebook)

Opted out of the tour programme for today and tomorrow, the last two full days in Leh. This means missing oout on the worlds highest motorable road, the Khardungla Pass (5578m) - which would have been a new personal altitude record (though only by 78m); the Samstaling Samemanling Monastery; a ride on a Bactrian camel; camping out overnight; a gala dinner; a market, and Chamba Monatery. Instead, I chose to pay about an extra £150 to pay for a replacement room to the one I am not using on the tour, and to hire a driver for two days, and miscellaneous other expenses; to have to wake at 04:45, and leave the hotel at 05:00 for a (very pleasent) 20 minute drive; spend an hour shivering in all the clothes I had with me in the pre-dawn cold; spend the next six hours in direct, unshaded Himalayan sunshine at altitude; be packed in a space so small that I was touching the person behind, to my left, and to my right, with only my little backpack separating me from the person in front; so tightly packed that change of position was virtually impossible; to walk to the car in the car park at 12:30 and get out of the car park only at 13:45, with the drive to the hotel getting me back at 14:15; all in preparation for doing exactly the same thing tomorrow.

It was SOOOO worthwhile, in order to hear the Dalai Lama teaching. I don't know how many people were there, though I made fairly good guesses that there were two - three thousand foreigners, about a thousand nuns and about two thousand monks. My guess of the total number of people there was between 30 and 80 thousand, with a belief that it was nearer the latter figure than the former. This was a fantastic day, though it was a little disconcerting to hear the translation start (I paraphrase) "As I was saying when I was last here, three years ago....."

Buddhist Experience Week - cont.

During the first night I spent at Samye Ling, somebody using a hair dryer set off the fire alarm at 05:45. The alarm is very sensitive, and painfully loud. Anyway as a result of this I got up in time for the optional prayers. I did not attend these, as it had been made clear the previous evening, that the view of the monastry was that this service was for those who had sought refuge (the taking of vows to abide by the Buddhist way of life). However it did set the pattern for me, and I was up early for each day of the course.

The meals were all vegatarian, and superb. Breakfast was fruit, porridge, and toast (except Thursdays for some reason - a vegetarian fry up); Lunch was the main meal, with very substantial portions available - a main dish and a sweet - all fabulous; the evening meal (not taken by most of the monks and nuns) was soup and toast - usually a proper soup - ie one in which a spoon would stand up.

The meditiation practice sessions proved to be a lot more interesting than I had anticipated. I have always regarded my Tai Ji as a form of meditation, and as a result that I was fairly well practiced in meditation. I was unprepared for how physically tough I found it; the meditation itself did have correspondances with my Tai Ji - particularly those moments of Tai Ji (very rare) when I am totally in the moment, focussed, yet open and aware and my Tai Ji is just no effort. I did find the Buddhist seated meditation had moments like that. I also found, over the course of the week that I was doing more regular practice of my Tai Ji than earlier this year, and that the Buddhist meditation was a very good preparation for my Tai Ji. Doing the meditation put me in a appropriate state of mind, relaxation, and focus; all of which enhanced my Tai Ji.

The teaching sessions were interesting, though I had gone to the week determined to live the experience rather than gather information. This was based on a couple of lessons I have learned from my Tai Ji. The first is this sort of training and development can only be learnt by repetitively doing it. The second is that during the development of my Tai Ji, I have taken lots of notes (books and books of notes) but rarely referred back to them. As a result I took no notes; and concentrated on what was being conveyed. Some of the information was familiar - I have had a passing interest in Buddhism for some time. More significant was the delivery of the material. All the teachers, had the feel of teaching from real personal experience in depth and a great personal understanding of that experience. (There was one exception to this - at least for me.) Their transmission of experience was invaluable.

The whole of the course conveyed what I think of as what a monastic life SHOULD be. It suggested to me a Christian monastry devoted to the teachings of Christ, rather than the precepts of Christianity. (I was not aware at the time I formed this view; that Christ's teachings contained any prohibitions at all; I have since learned that they do contain one prohibition - on divorce). The teachers, organisers of the course, and the monastic population all were focussed on the precepts of Buddhism, and provided plenty of evidence that this focus was derived from the experience of Buddhist practices. There was one comment, in the middle of general conversation, that summarised this for me. The monk I was working with during the work sessions said that if he had a clash with another of the monastic community, he made a point of working with and for that person as soon as possible.

The contrast between this and my perception of Christianity was marked. Christianity is obviously theist (a concept that has no meaning for me); it is based on the starting point that man is born sinful, cannot earn salvation, which is only available by grace, and is a mass of prohibitions, injunctions, and proscriptions. By contrast Buddhism came over to me as non-theist; based on the starting point that all sentient life has within it, Buddha mind, the ground state of the entire universe; and is not based on any equivalent set of imperatives. This is not to say that Buddhism does not have rules; but they appear to be training rules that individuals undertake voluntarily to facilitate practice. The basic precepts are:
1. To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms)
2. To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft)
3. To refrain from sensual (including sexual) misconduct
4. To refrain from lying (speaking truth always)
5. To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and alcohol)
Again my take on these are that if one adopts these rules personally, then the only person who will be let down by failure to abide by the precepts is the individual who took vows to abide by them.

Altogether a much more rational approach to life than that of any of the theist approaches.

The other activities on the course included details of the construction of the Stupa; a tour of the grounds; a presentation by ROKPA (the charity that I am in touch with regarding volunteering in Tibet); and general get togethers for those on the course.

The one thing I haven't touched on was the Chenrezig puja instruction. I will probably come back to this later.

All in all a very impressive week. I am glad I booked to go on the course, even though I thought I was doing so only to get in touch with ROKPA. It proved to be valuable, interesting, and enjoyable.

Buddhist Experience Week

Early this year I decided that I would try to spend a considerable amount of time in Tibet. I started investigating volunteering opportunities and came up with a couple of possible organisations who had operations in places of interest, and who had jobs that looked as if they could use my skills and experience. One of these was an American based charity which had posts in Kham, but the other was ROKPA - the charity associated with Samye Ling. This charity's work is based on supplying food, and providing education to orphans and the children of single parent families, in Nepal, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tibetan areas of China. While its objectives are less well matched to my skills than the American charity; they do have the overwhelming advantage of being UK based, and thus far more accessible than the other one.

My motivation for going to Samye Ling was sparked by this investigation, and a general interest in all affairs Tibetan, and some interest in Buddhism. I booked the course up convinced that this was my only motivation. However, I got more out of the week than I anticipated, and it made me realise that my motivations were much more extensive than I thought when I booked the course.

The timetable for the course was:
06:00-07:00 Green Tara Puja (prayers) - optional
07:00-08:00 Breakfast
08:00-09:00 Guided meditation practices
09:00-11:00 Work period
11:00-11:30 Tea break
11:30-12:30 Teaching
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:00 Activity/teaching
15:00-17:00 Free time
17:00-18:00 Teaching
18:00-19:00 Soup
19:00-20:00 Chenrezig puja & instruction
20:00-21:00 Cafe (some activities and some nights)

On the first evening we were all given a choice of work assignments - with the option of changing these every couple of days. I opted for maintenance, as likely to be the hardest physical work on offer. I wanted something that would leave me physically tired, as it is easier to switch off the mental racetrack I sometimes get on as I try to go to sleep. In the event I enjoyed the work so much that I opted for this work for the whole of the week.

The jobs I ended up doing during the work period included helping shift sheet steel and scaffolding poles, going with the monk who is the caretaker and health and safety officer for the site to feed the (pet) yaks they have at the monastry, helping him lay out an iron gate that he is making for Holy Island (where the long term retreats are held), clearing up scrap metal, putting boxes of files and papers up into one of their attics, collected a band finisher from one of the monastry's other sites, used the band finisher to take the sharp corners off the metal work on the gate, shifted some waste timber from their camp site, erected a safety fence to keep the public from an earth and rock dump, and shifted various bits of timber. All in all an interesting set of jobs that fulfilled my aim in selecting that work.

I found the monk, to whom I was providing a small amount of unskilled labour, to be a very interesting character. Built like a brick outhouse (or something similar), he is heavily tatooed down both arms, which are visible when he is in his monk's robes, and a genuine artist with metal work. Metal that he was working just seemed to become what he wanted it to be, without effort. He has taken life long vows as a monk. He also has a great sense of mischief, and regaled me with stories of the funny situations he has been in, or created. A nice guy to meet and work with.

to be cont.

Samye Ling

I arrived at Samye Ling as described in my last post. I got my key, and went up to my room. The first thing that I saw when I entered the room was this delightful sight.





I took these photos before doing any unpacking or sorting myself out. When I had unpacked I did my usual thing in any new place. I went for a wander about the grounds of Samye Ling. It is a very extensive place, with the temple, a Stupa, a lamp house, dining and workshop block, building works as they build (slowly) phase two of the temple area, a formal gate, lake, vegetable garden, several houses, multiple cells for the permanent residents, a cafe, a Tibetan shop, at least two residential blocks, the original house - which now functions as administrative offices, charity offices, residence for some of the monks, library, and common room - a barn, multiple small workshops, a carpentry shop, and a metal workshop. The whole grounds are bounded by the river - a river along the boundary, with another river joining it at about the midpoint of the grounds.







The area the monastry is situated in is one of the biggest comercial pine forests in the country. It is in a hilly area, with quite large hills. The hills are heavily weathered, as a result of the site's proximity to the west coast of Scotland. As a result there are quite a number of temporary roads cut in the forest for the use of the lumber industry. As a result of all these factors, it is apparently quite easy to get lost in the area, when walking. I did not leave the main site for the duration of the week.

The information I had received before the week included the timetable for the week, and the monastic timetable. These made it clear that it was as was to be expected - a monastic timetable - prayers and meditation early - the main meal being at lunch time - work sessions in the morning - free time in the afternoon - and more prayers and meditation in the early evening and after the meal.

I picked up on this timetable at the evening meal, which represented the start of the week.

More on the actual week to follow.