Tabo - August 2011

20 August

We were all up at 6:00 in order to be ready to catch the bus to take us down the Pin valley, as part of our trip to Tabo. We skipped breakfast for the sake of sleep, but asked the monk to prepare us some chapatis that we ate while we were packing. Having heard that the bus sometimes stops only at Gulley down the valley and doesn't bother making the detour up the hill to Kungri, we head out on a short-cut across the fields straight to Gulley, but half way there, we spotted the bus climbing the hill, earlier than we had been told - we were neither in Kungri nor Gulley, and as there was only one bus per day, we all had to break into a shuffled rucksack type of run through the fields to get back to the road in the hope of catching the bus on its way down the hill. We made it, flagged the bus to a halt, loaded our rucksacks onto the roof and piled in. Our bus surprises were however not over for the day.
We had to get the Kasa headed bus to take us back down the Pin valley to the confluence with the Spiti river, and then up the Spiti river until the bridge, where we could cross over, and wait for a second bus from Kasa to take us down the other side of the Spiti river to Tabo. But while we were rocking and bumping our way up the Spiti river, we saw the Tabo bus, surrounded by a cloud of dust on the other side of the valley heading down river and already past the bridge - we had missed it, and the next one was not until the evening. We got off anyway at the bridge, in the middle of nowhere, piled our rucksacks up and sat down with a pack of digestive biscuits to wait for any potential vehicles going to Tabo that could give us a lift, but prepared if necessary to wait the 8 hours before the next Tabo headed bus was due. We didn't have to wait long. After about half an hour, we saw a small car coming up on the other side of the river. Seeing that he was turning right after coming over the bridge, I flagged it down - it was a tiny Chrysler hatchback with an elderly Kinnaur gentleman driving on his own. He was indeed headed to Tabo, but, shaking his head, pointing at the rucksacks and mumbling about weight, he was clearly lacking faith that we could squeeze four people and four rucksacks into his car, or perhaps the ability of his car to transport them over the mountains. Fia and Tamsin came up to join the car window discussion, and gave him a smile while he was deliberating - after that, the decision was made - it just became a question of "how" we would fit us all in and not "whether". At a squeeze, we managed to get Jacqui's rucksack into the boot, the two girls rucksacks by their feet in the back seat with Jacqui as well, and I, after having tried a few different angles, managed to get in the front passenger seat with my rucksack on my lap. The rucksack stretched across more than half the width of the car, and everytime that he needed to change gears (which was very frequently, given the mountainous and rocky route) I had to lift my right leg to raise my rucksack so that he could have acces to the gear lever. He was a gentle and likeable man, even though we had hardly any common vocabularly between us, and he drove very carefully over this dramatic rough stretch of road, slowing almost to a halt for every pot-hole and winding across the width of the road to find the smoothest path. Jacqui and the girls fell asleep while I stayed wide-eyed for the two and a half hour drive, soaking in every inch of this majestic route, cut through steep valley sides and jagged grey rock lunar-like landscapes.

We arrived at Tabo, and our driver - his reluctance at taking on this voluminous family having long ago been superseded by an eagerness to help us in any way he could - took us up to the door of a guest-house we had mentioned.

It was one that had been recommended to us by a Russian/English couple that we had met in Kasa (and who we were later to meet again). It was a residential house onto which the owners had built a second floor for a few guest rooms. Although it was not endowed with any particular character, it was homely, the family were more than welcoming, and our room was spacious and spotless with a dream of a shower emitting copious amounts of hot water at any time - a luxury that we had not seen in several weeks. The lovely town (village?) of Tabo, though much smaller than Kasa, is better known due to its 1000 year old monastery (a favourite of the Dalai Lama, who regularly stays) that dominates the village. Despite the smattering of tourists, the place remains completely unaffected, and, nestled amongst the Spiti valley Himalayas, retains an atmosphere of total serenity.
Having shed our rucksacks, we wondered through Tabo and had a quick breakfast at a little restaurant before we headed back for a siesta. After a late lunch of momos, spring rolls and parantha (a delicious chapati stuffed with cheese and potatos) we visited the monastery. It was constructed in a beige sand-coloured mud-brick, giving more of a north african feel, in 969 AD by Rinchen Zangpo, not long after the first introduction of Buddhism in the Spiti valley as part of the wave of Gelugpa-sect monasteries he built in the region (along with Dhankar that we had visited earlier). We were shown by one of the monks around the different chambers that each led from a central open courtyard. THe monastery is particularly famed for the astonishingly well preserved artwork inside, mostly dating from the initial construction of the monastery and for which Rinchen Zangpo hired the very best of artists from the different corners of the kingdom. In a dimly-lit monastic slience, we browsed the detailed murals that lined the walls and admired the chamber full of huge mystical stucco sculpted bodhissatvas (Buddha had reached a liberated state of enlightenment, freeing himself from the world although for compassionate reasons had chosen to stay among us, bhodissatvas were others who had reached or were on their way to this state).
Our timing was coincidentally perfect for the puja. We sat cross-legged looking through the doorway while the magical spiritual atmosphere filled the chamber like a vapour, with one lone monk (the main communal puja for the other monks being performed now in the more recent monastery constructed next-door) chanting in repetitive simple melody with occasional scripted accompaniment of a hand drum and clashes of a traditional cymbal.
With a vivid sense of the life of 11'th century Buddhism ringing around our minds, we left the monastery and scrambled directly up the steep valley side on the edge of Tabo (ignorant at that stage of an easy paved path only 200m from where we were climbing), to find the caves that the monks once used as their secluded retreats for meditation and prayer. They completed the picture of intense spirituality, but also offered us an exciting playground where we could hide behind rocks while we launched our attack on the imaginary pirates hiding inside the caves.

Kungri - August 2011

Photo album Kungri
https://picasaweb.google.com/116253494913081133936/KungriAlbum#5668849878923277826

18 August


This was the second day of the Ladarcha festival in Kasa, and the centre was pulsing with trading activity again. Once again, after several previous false starts in our attempts to leave Kasa, we packed our bags. The girls meanwhile were working on some maths exercises. At lunch time, we wondered into town to say our goodbyes to the friends we had made, and by 3:00 were walking down this well-trodden street as we had done many times in the last 10 days, but this time with our rucksacks on our backs and a sad sense of departure from familiarity eclipsing any of the excitement we had from the anticipation of new discoveries. We would take the bus east out of Kasa along the Spiti valley, before branching up the Pin valley to the Kungri monastery, where we would stay the night. Then we would return down the Pin valley to join the Spiti valley, and over the next week to 10 days, continue along the long road that starts east towards Tibet, then gradually loops south parallel to the Tibetan border, and then west through Kinnaur to come back to more populated territories closer to Lahaul, where finally the single life-blood road that had crossed the remote valleys flowers into a network between multiple urban centres through which we could pick our way to Dharamsala. We had some ideas about some places we could stop on the way but much would be determined by the buses - their timings, and the lengths of the journeys. The bus was not due to leave for Kungri until 4:30pm, and we had wanted to be very early to be absolutely sure that we could get a place. There was already a bus standing in the bus park, crammed full with people, and with more trying to get on. We were sure that it was too early to be our bus, already so packed, one and a half hours before it left, but having asked several different people we solemnly accepted this ominous reality - we were going to have to fight our way on and suffer this journey. I climbed up onto the roof to load our rucksacks, while Jacqui and the girls squeezed and pushed to pierce through the crowds and into the aisle in the middle of the bus. I decided to stay out of the bus to be able to keep an eye on our bags for the long wait before it deparated, assuming that alone I would be able to find some way to fight my way on at the last minute. By the time I located the girls looking through the windows and between the mass of bodies, Jacqui was perched on a few inches of space that had been kindly liberated by an already squashed row of passengers, and Fia and Tamsin were on different laps - all a few seats away from each other.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.


By the time I got to the girls, both were suffering from the stuffy heat. Jacqui was next to a man who had seemingly come in from the countryside to be part of the festivities in Kasa, He was blind drunk, but couldn't hide his delight at having a foriegn family near him, and was determined to make conversation, brushing aside any constraints of his complete lack of any English language, and compensating with enthusiastic persistence. We did some maneouvering, and managed to persuade him to flop over onto the laps of some of his high spirited but more controlled friends, in exchange for Tamsin, who was looking unwell and could then be close to Jacqui. Fia, who was also not feeling well, was close to me - I remained standing, concentrating on maintaining feeling in all parts of my body. Finally the bus set off, to cheers from the roof, and we pursued our bumpy track. We had an hour and a half journey, most of it in the same cramped and air-less conditions in which we had left, and only with some relief in the last quarter of an hour when a number of people descended at the larger village before Kungri. Fia was sick on the floor and Tamsin felt ill all journey but managed to survive without being sick. Some others were also sick - one from the roof, landing through the window on a sleeping boys head, with the mother looking confused at it until she realised what it was, and hurriedly brushed it off. We stepped off the bus into the very small village of Kungri, and unloaded our packs, which luckily had waterproof covers that had protected them from the baptism that the boy inside the bus had unknowingly endured. Kungri was the end of the road, and the bus manouvered in a three point turn and headed off back down the hill. The puff of black exhaust smoke cleared to leave us standing, with a huge sense of relief in a beautiful village in the most wonderful of settings amongst the mountains and overlooking the Pin river far below at the bottom of the valley. The rumble of the bus died away in the distance, leaving nothing but a serene peace, disturbed only by the occasional chatter of villagers returning from the fields, or children playing. The monastery was unmistakeable at the far end of the settlements, proudly standing out from the homogeneity of the village with its distinctive monastic walled enclosure, stepped construction and manifold yellow pagoda roof tops. We wondered through the village, towards it, causing the villagers to stop and watch, smiling at us and commenting to each other, and through the imposing entrance gates we entered into this ascetic and insular island.

A few cloaked monks were floating around in near silence, fetching water from the manual well-pump near the entrance. We greeted them, and without understanding what we were saying, they understood the meaning of what we were asking and pointed towards one of the buildings. We were welcomed without words or smiles by a further monk who unlocked some double doors, and led us into an unlit coridor to show us a room at the end. It was austere, with nothing but two rock-hard beds, and two mattresses on the floor, but the positioning of this room was providential, at the far end of the monastery on the edge of the precipice falling down to the Pin river, and with windows on two of the sides giving magnificent views up and down the valley. There was a 'shared' bathroom outside the room (though there were no other guests at the monastery for the 2 days we were there) with a hole in the ground toilet, and a tap and bucket for the shower, though uninspiringly close to the toilet hole. We enquired as to whether we could get dinner. "Half past seven" he replied directly. We didn't push for any further details. Jacqui and Tamsin rested in the room, recovering from the arduous journey while Fia and I ventured into the inner courtyard of the monastery. We asked after Namgyal, the french student that we had met in Kasa, but, it was his birthday, and he was out for the day in solitude at a secluded cave in the mountains (as you do).
After we all had a wonder around the village, Namgyal appeared, and enthusiasticaly gave us a run down of the village. He took us to one of the two "shops" - a simple non-marked low doorway under a house, that we squeezed through to find ourselves in a room that wasn't big enough for us all. We shuffled to try to close the door to liberate a little space but it left us in complete darkness after closing out the little dusk light that had lit the room - so we hurriedly shuffled again to reopen it. As our eyes adjusted we could see a few packets of crisps, buckets of lentils and rice, candle wicks cut to length, some shoes, and a water boiler (optimistic, as we never saw any sign of electricity in the village - we certainly never had any electricity in the monastery). Our dinner of rice and lentils was served at 7:30 sharp, with us sitting at a candle-lit table, alone in a large bare room. The food was basic but good, and the flickering candle light in the austere monastic surroundings made the experience special. Back in our room, With no lighting other than our torches and a candle, there wasn't much to do other than go to bed, and early as it was, we weren't complaining.

19 August

We had arranged breakfast at 8:00 - relieved that guests were excused from the monks morning timetable of 4:00am puja (prayer). Simple chapatis and omelette were served for breakfast, outside in warm sunshine, amongst humbling views of the mountains, and the gentle sounds of monastery life around us. The girls did some writing up of their diaries then we Wondered through the village and along a path into a neighbouring village. It was grass cutting time and everyone was engaged in one way or another. - families, children, grannys, donkeys. The fields were full of groups of villagers scything, and the paths dotted with those transporting, their faces sweating with exertion as they hauled huge bundles of grass, held with a strap over their backs, up the hills from the fields to the houses. The grass bundles were heaved up ladders and layed out on the roofs. All Spiti houses have characteristic piles of small logs or stacked bundles of grass on their flat roofs. Wherever the villagers worked they had their flask of chai and if far from home, a little cooker for their rice and dahl lunch.

In the neighbouring village, a 20 minute walk away from Kungri, a large group of children of different ages were running around playing a form of tag. Scruffy looking, dishevelled and with clothes dusty and dirty from their rudimentary rural lives, but with captivating smiles and sparkling eyes, and a timid fascination in us. We stood in the middle of it for a while, with them running around us - Tamsin and Fia wanted to join in, but when we asked the children, they misunderstood and all lined up for a photo. We took some photos, then Fia indicated that she was going to do the chasing and just started chasing - that worked, they understood, and the game took off. They had a lot of fun, but the disparity of fitness eventually showed through, so Fia and Tamsin retired with enthusiastic waves of goodbye as we walked on.

There were no guest houses or restaurants in Kungri other than where we were staying - we hadn't informed the monk that we would want lunch, as we were half hoping that we would somehow stumble on some lunch somewhere - be invited into someones house, eat with the nuns (apparently somewhere around the village, but we never really found them). At 12:00 we were back at the monastery without having eaten and not quite knowing what to do, but we were saved when the monk came and knocked on our door and announced that our lunch was ready. Thank goodness we hadn't found lunch anywhere else.

We ate outside again, this time the dahl and rice was supplemented with an additional bowl of curried vegetables. The monk looking after us had no english other than the names of the food, never smiled and had a permanent nervous look on his face. I am sure there was no connection, but Numgyal later informed us that the monks were delighted that we were not Israeli - they had a terrible reputation with the locals for being loud, demanding, rude, and agreesive with money. We came across Israeli travellers all the time, and without exception the ones that we came to know were all charming, interesting and likeable, such as Zohar, the zookeeper, marooned as we were in Kasa, and the couple that we originally met on the bus back from Dhanker monastery and then bumped into several times subsequently - but from a distance, you could see how the initial manner of many Isrealis could cause offence or provoke in different cultures.

In the afternoon we headed down the valley side towards the river. At the village of Gulley, we stopped for a chai in a tiny dark room that we had to stoop to get into and never would have found if a local hadn't guided us there. The chai was prepared on a small kerosene cooker on the ground almost at our feet, by a sombre man with no English at all, and we managed to get by with our limited Hindi.

At the valley floor we crossed the rickety bridge made from steel wires and rough planks of wood, across the churning Pin river and wondered around the dry sections of the river bed before starting to make our way up the steep valley side back to the monastery. The younger monks were all out playing various games when we got back - something that looked like an adapted form of baseball, and others a type of marbles by using stones. We sat and enjoyed this unexpected sight of joyful energy in the midst of such an ascetic community, as they ran around, cussocks hitched up to their wastes. We were in a period of the year when the monks were not allowed outside the walled perimeter of the monastery and each evening we saw them carrying their bowls and spoons, strolling around the limits of their permitted zones for some pre-dinner exercise. It seemed a painfully claustrophobic life to us, but we found that even if some monks are proposed to the monastery at a young age by their family, many go from their own will, and none of them have any constraints to stay there.
Amongst the buildings was a small ghompa, 400 years old - long ago superseded by newer larger prayer halls for the now large community of monks, but still maintained and used by one single monk. Mostly it was locked, but this evening we noticed the door open and cautiously crept inside to find ourselves in the middle of the monks puja. We quietly took a seat and observed. The monk was sat cross legged, with his scriptures in front of him, chanting continuously in a haunting, faintly melodic mantra, evocatively echoing around the ancient spiritual walls, with the mystical atmosphere occasionally punctuated by the ringing of a bell or the pounding on a small hand drum.
Kungri monastery is of the Nyingma sect of Buddhism (as opposed to the Tibetan Gelugpa sect of the Dalai Lama fame) and so we found was less well known amongst the buddhist community in other parts.

We ate that evening with the monks. The food, rice and dahl, was served outside from two large cauldrons and we all queued for our servings before sitting on the ground, leaning against a wall. We had somehow envisaged eating seated at long wooden tables in a large reverberating hall but instead were in the cold of the mountainous evening air in a concreted setting more reminiscent of a prison yard, except for the mass of maroon cussocked monks around us, smiling and interested in these strange incongruities amongst their insular community.

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