Family of coral and turquoise bracelet and necklace sellers. at the outskirts of the Shigatse Monastery in central Tibet. George and I hung out trying on their wares and joking around with the kids. I bought my favorite bracelet here right off the woman's wrist.
Mother and daughter hovering over yards of wonderfully colorful stones, beads and coral pieces. A really nice morning talking and hand-signaling a conversation between all of us. We weren't even customers anymore.
Father and daughter
Shigatse monastery, a center of Buddhism in Tibet, north of Sikkim and Bhutan on the flank of the Himalayan mountains. A center for teaching young Buddhist monks of the Yellow Hat Society.
Main courtyard in the middle of the Shigatse monastery. The large white building on the right is used for special high celebrations and a giant Buddhist tapestry is hung from its wall.
Entrance to the main temple of temple. A large compound but it felt rather empty and devoid of the spontaneous monastic life the other monasteries, large and small, had.
One of the young Buddhist trainees collapses into a big heavy bundle of laundry as the other monks run across the courtyard to temple for training
The bells chime and the young monks from the Yellow Hat Society run laughing and chattering up to the temple doors
One of my favorite photos from Tibet
One of the most beautiful surprises was the variety of designs and decorations on Tibetan doors and surrounding areas. Every one had is own color, texture, surface and even individual "curtains". The doors themselves ranged from rough stained natural wood to painted figures and animals. Some even had hand carved or metal knockers with braised ribbons hanging from the middle.
Steep step that lead to underground chambers under the monastery where the rocks imbedded in the granite floor were left in place and polished over hundreds of years.
George drawing in early morning light in our hotel in Shigatse while my wet pants dry on the racks outside the window bars
Crossing over a steep road (under construction by hand labor done by men women and even children) and high pass we came upon this beautiful clear lake that I haven't the slightest what the name is.
More high passes and glaciers with herds of yaks and sheep grazing next to the white flour colored river
Our camp to the north of Mount Everest on the grand sweeping plains and hills. We were having car problems that Pemba fixed with bailing wire. The skies are amazingly broad and vast and it almost seemed you could see the curvature of the earth being at this high elevation.
No comments:
Post a Comment