Round Sera Monastery
Sera Monastery ,
We started out on a little kora to try to sneak into the monastery (70yaun ever time adds up) about 10dollars! Halfway through we meet a group of woman having tea in a shady spot by the river, we sit, share tea and cakes and fumble through with limited Tibetan and Chinese.
( I now speak four new languages very, very poorly by the way)
We try to sort out our path and they show disapproval at our anti-kora, so we begin the accent up the mountain in the correct direction. Up steep rocks we climbed, clutching and sliding, there must have been a safer way to the top. Of course there was but what is the fun in that? Finally we reach a small chorten (a Tibetan Buddhist shrine) at the top of a hill. From all around there are commanding views of the valley. Prayer flags are strewn down to the bottom. The scene is alot to take in and it takes awhile to continue because of the elevation makes every step feel like a thousand.
two steps.. breathe.. one step.. look around two steps…thinking about rolling down the mountain one step… breathe!
breathing is such effort, but with every step, you are compelled to make it just a bit further to climb just above the other ridge. To see what the other side has in store, mainly just more mind shattering views of the mountains.
In the middle we find a small monastery called sera utse. Only two monks live there year round. We are given yummy or extremely yucky yak butter tea depending on your taste. Really it tastes like a butter soup, I have no idea why they call it tea.. yak butter soup more like it..
A hour or so is spent playing with the resident cutey-pie kid, and then we make the precarious decent. Didn’t even make it to the monastery, some days you have to just spend in the mountains..
slowly I am becoming a kora junkie..
Tags: lhasa, tibet, Travel
jessica
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