Tengbouche

The antique mandala story

The mountain breakfast boiled eggs and hot milk with beet powder.

Last view of Namche. The most difficult part of the hike to Tengbouche is always those stone steps getting out of Namche, they make you want to just give it all up. But then you get to the top of the hill and the mountains come out of the clouds Ama Dablam appears and life seems so much better.  It is a long downhill, up and down, to the river past beautiful stupas, then to the small lunch place by the river, where we go chocolate croissants las time, we took a small break for ginger tea, just to honor tradition and then started the hike up to tangbbouche, which  happened too fast in record time, we arrived at 11:30, and wanted to keep going but had to wait for the bags and porters. 

So I went inside the monastery and watched the always changing prayer flag and the always changing clouds from inside the courtyard. Later we went back to hear the monks do a long chant service , I did lots of drawings. Found a black and white spotted cow, not much else happening here, except clouds. 

Offerings incense 

Didn't know if these were stone mandalas or landing pads for the helicopter. The New Zealand helicopter pilot said he had to lots of rescues of Trekkers getting altitude sickness. That is how many of the climbers die on mt. Everest. Speaking of altitude Tanner told me that the map said Ama Dablam base camp, where we go tomorrow, is 15,088 feet, camp one is 19,008,  camp two is 19,614, and camp three is 21,123. The summit is 22, 488, with predicted high temperature at 6,000 meters of 1, Fahrenheit.

Namche

Since we got to Lukla so late, we had to walk from Lukla to Namche the next day, I realized the walk from Lukla to Phakding is mostly downhill, and not nearly as long as it feels  when Nima is making us stop to get tea. But I miss Nima. We booked it to Namche passing about 87 people and lots of naks. But the porters did not make it until late the next day. Typical beautiful tea house room at the place with the junipers where we had lunch last year.

My baker friend jeta at the German bakery across the milky river in Phakding. 

The famous bridge to the solukhumbu.

The long hike to Namche seemed a lot shorter without the stops.

Namche Bazar, a town on the side of the mountain, but mostly in the clouds. Like magic the plan to meet Tanner at the German bakery worked! At last someone to talk with. We visited my painter friend Kamur who showed us the ancient mandala. It cannot be sold he said, the house could not live without it, money could never replace it. That is how I felt about it too.

Only yak cheese not any kind of chocolate.

Most of the time it is like this, cloudy foggy and without a book or sketchbook since everything was in the bag with the lost porters. But we made a plan, finally once the bags arrived. Go to tengbouche tomorrow, get a blessing from the llama, check the bakery, then the next day go to Pangbouche for lunch then Ama Dablam base camp, where there is supposed be a tent waiting for us and a cook.

Lukla

5:00 am go to the airport over the dark bumping side roads of Kathmandu and then wait this is the beginning of solitude wait all morning then most of the afternoon because the weather is bad in the mountains. Finally the helpful airport person thinks a helicopter might do, in fact the first thing he said when we met him was maybe a helicopter...so after much negotiation five of us, plus all the bags are stuffed into a helicopter. What about the bad weather, I thought. What about all of this extra weight? So the entire trip I was looking for safe places to land in case we became too heavy...it was easy to look since our pilot, surprise, from Austria,likes to fly really close to the trees and the walls of the steep mountainsides. 

I didn't know helicopters had windshield wipers. Lukla is misty foggy and raining and now I will need to get all the way to Namche tomorrow. 

Hindu Diwali, The five-day festival of lights

Hindu Diwali, The five-day festival of lights, which coincides with Hindu New Year, is seen to be one of the most significant in the Indian culture.

Kathmandu Prayer Flags

Hindu Diwali, The five-day festival of lights, which coincides with Hindu New Year, is seen to be one of the most significant in the Indian culture.

Many people celebrate the legend of Hindu God Rama and his wife Sita's returning to their kingdom in northern India after being exiled following the defeat of demon king Ravanna. The word itself means "series of lights" and during the festival houses and shops are decorated with candles and lights.

This is meant to represent light over darkness and the Hindu belief that good will always triumph over evil. The date of the festival is calculated according to the position of the moon and the Hindu lunar calendar and is usually in October or November. The most important day is today, I think.

 Holiday in Patan

Patan Lion Gryphon Creature

The market walking in Durbur Square,  Patan is huge and chaotic, smelling of cilantro, marigolds, incense,  where vendors sell stacks of colored powder, long strings of flowers and offerings. 

 Early in the morning I stood on the roof to draw the prayer flags in the hazy light of the Kathmandu valley, the temple Swayambhunath gleaming gold on the top of the hill as a woman  in a red sari struck her bells and the pigeons and crows called in the distance. I was worried, probably  got up around 2 am,  about all this climbing gear about  how to get it up the mountain.  

 Swayambhunath

The dome at the base represents the entire world. When a person awakes (represented by eyes of wisdom and compassion) from the bonds of the world, the person reaches the state of enlightenment. The thirteen pinnacles on the top symbolize that sentient beings have to go through the thirteen stages of spiritual realizations to reach enlightenment or Buddhahood.  

There is a large pair of eyes on each of the four sides of the main stupa which represent Wisdom and Compassion. Swayambhunath is also known as the Monkey Temple as there are holy monkeys living in the north-west parts of the temple. For the Buddhist Newars, in whose mythological history and origin myth as well as day-to-day religious practice Swayambhunath occupies a central position. For Tibetans and followers of Tibetan Buddhism, it is second only to Boudha.

So my hotel, the Tibet Guest House, is run, it seems by Tibetans and has lots of prayer flags on the roof. 

 Swayambhunath  in the distance.