The poisoned stone
Walked into town yesterday, following the forest path the students showed me a couple of weeks ago. It is even more dramatic than I remembered; there is a riot of plant life, including all kinds of the most extraordinary mushrooms, and at several points there are views of the sweeping valley and mountainside opposite on the right. They say you shouldn't walk it alone because bears don't attack people in groups. Then again they also say the bears come out at night. Anyway, I met no bears, nor tigers, and the walk, while not a stroll in the park, seemed much more manageable than last time, as walks will on a second acquaintance. (The luxury of doing it at my own pace, rather than that of a bunch of local youths, probably helped, though it also added half an hour or so.) Rinpoche's mate gave me a room at his guesthouse for the night so I have had the luxury of two hot showers.
*
Met some workmen on some of the many building works going on around the place, as I walked up to the shedra. I thought my ten-minute walk to work was arduous, but they while working there are walking the 11km from the village every day, up all the way.
*
Phuntsho was on cooking duty at the shedra for a week. I usually stay for lunch after my morning lesson, and he is evidently a fine cook as the sometimes unappealing food has been reliably delicious, considerably softening the blow of missing his valuable presence in the class. As we stand chatting in the kitchen he asks about food I have been cooking and inter alia I mention omelette. 'Would you like an omelette?' he asks enthusiastically, and waves aside my objections about his being busy and so forth. Then it turns out he has never made an omelette before: 'You must tell me how to make it.' So following my directions he makes an omelette, and it is much more successful than any omelette I have ever made myself.
*
I have fallen into the habit of taking a daily walk to the 'shukti' up on the ridge. Once, near the top, it started raining quite heavily; I sat out the worst in the shelter and came down in rain. The top part of the path is slippery and far from a cakewalk when wet, but a party of half a dozen old women passed me on their way up, laughing and chatting cheerfully and with no raincoats or umbrellas.
On the way down, a stunted pine tree with sprays of long needles, a perfect globe of water poised at the tip of each one.
*
A student who wasn't in class that day explains that he had had to go up to a yak house on the mountain to help someone whose yak had been killed by a tiger. So perhaps there are tigers around after all. As far as I could understand they were cutting it up for meat and taking it somewhere or other.
*
No lessons in the shedra for a few days as the students are off each morning 'to chop trees'. Wood supplies are running low Monday is the start of the summer retreat, during which they can't leave the monastery grounds, so this is the last chance to stock up. One of them, G, was away one day last week in town, going to the 'Forestry Office' to get a permit.
I join them for the first morning. We walk in a jolly group to a particular bend in the road and wait around for a couple of hours. Some of the monks play bowls with pieces of rock. Phuntsho and I go for a walk. It turns out we have been waiting for G, who has been to the Forestry Office again and is coming back with a cheerful-looking official, who has to mark the trees they are permitted to cut.
Long steep and barely visible trail through wood. Most of work is seemingly actually done by two volunteers from village with their chainsaws, while monks sit around and occasionally roll logs downhill. The hill is steep and a well-pushed log will tumble a long way and out of sight. They will have more work to do later, carrying the logs to the road, loading them onto a truck and unloading at the other end.
*
A surprising story about the important C14 philosopher and saint who is a local icon - he founded the monastery and it is his statue up at the shukti. Evidently he was not always held in such universal esteem, since it turns out that while he was living here (in exile from Tibet), the villagers tried to poison him. The story is that they gave him a cup of local distilled spirit laced with poison, while he was sitting on a huge round ledger stone. He knew of course, and supposedly tipped a little onto the stone, saying something that differs from one account to another - e.g. 'I just want to check if it's strong or not', or 'I can't drink this and neither can this stone' - and the stone broke in three.
You can go and visit the stone - along a path that is not only gorgeous but mostly level, unlike any other path round here. It is a huge circular slab stone which has been split into three like a ginger snap. When I get there some incense is burning, though there is no habitation nearby and no-one is in sight. There is also a well nearby which I gather is water with some holy connection to the great man.
*
Previously when I've ordered milk it's come in an old Royal Himalistan mineral water bottle, but today it is in a bottle labelled 'Black Mountain Whisky'. Not poisoned, I'm happy to report.
*
'I think that's my friend Waggy Wagtail,' I say to Pema as we stand outside his shop. Waggy is coming towards us down the road.
'Where?' he asks, not unreasonably, since no-one can be seen on the road. His English, though fair, is not up to decoding the subtleties of the name Waggy Wagtail.
'There,' I say and point, increasing his mystification, since she is out of sight behind a low fence. When she comes back into view I hail her and she absolutely bounds up the steps to greet me.
*
The shop sells crisps and similar snacks, and they are packed as usual in airtight bags, except that the bags are bulging to bursting point, and are so taut that it is difficult to open them. I noticed this in a casual way when I first saw them, but it has taken me till now to realise that it is due not to some peculiar Himalistani way of filling crisp packets (they come from India anyway), but to the low atmospheric pressure here due to the altitude. I wonder how high you have to take them before they burst.
*
Attendance at the class in the monastery has been patchy lately as students are always off 'working' somewhere, or at a puja in the village, and so forth. (All that will stop when the retreat starts on Monday.) One class had only four, so rather than sit in the classroom I suggested we go for a walk and chat about what we saw. A much more enjoyable class for all of us than usual, and the three of them who rarely if ever can be persuaded to utter anything English beyond a foolish grin were by the end relaxed enough that they made a few halting attempts to say something to me. (The fourth, K, has fair English and unfortunately would insist on translating everything most of the time, but still.)
*
I was only ever given a 3-month visa, and no extension was forthcoming, so I will be back in the UK at the end of September.
*
Met some workmen on some of the many building works going on around the place, as I walked up to the shedra. I thought my ten-minute walk to work was arduous, but they while working there are walking the 11km from the village every day, up all the way.
*
Phuntsho was on cooking duty at the shedra for a week. I usually stay for lunch after my morning lesson, and he is evidently a fine cook as the sometimes unappealing food has been reliably delicious, considerably softening the blow of missing his valuable presence in the class. As we stand chatting in the kitchen he asks about food I have been cooking and inter alia I mention omelette. 'Would you like an omelette?' he asks enthusiastically, and waves aside my objections about his being busy and so forth. Then it turns out he has never made an omelette before: 'You must tell me how to make it.' So following my directions he makes an omelette, and it is much more successful than any omelette I have ever made myself.
*
I have fallen into the habit of taking a daily walk to the 'shukti' up on the ridge. Once, near the top, it started raining quite heavily; I sat out the worst in the shelter and came down in rain. The top part of the path is slippery and far from a cakewalk when wet, but a party of half a dozen old women passed me on their way up, laughing and chatting cheerfully and with no raincoats or umbrellas.
On the way down, a stunted pine tree with sprays of long needles, a perfect globe of water poised at the tip of each one.
*
A student who wasn't in class that day explains that he had had to go up to a yak house on the mountain to help someone whose yak had been killed by a tiger. So perhaps there are tigers around after all. As far as I could understand they were cutting it up for meat and taking it somewhere or other.
*
No lessons in the shedra for a few days as the students are off each morning 'to chop trees'. Wood supplies are running low Monday is the start of the summer retreat, during which they can't leave the monastery grounds, so this is the last chance to stock up. One of them, G, was away one day last week in town, going to the 'Forestry Office' to get a permit.
I join them for the first morning. We walk in a jolly group to a particular bend in the road and wait around for a couple of hours. Some of the monks play bowls with pieces of rock. Phuntsho and I go for a walk. It turns out we have been waiting for G, who has been to the Forestry Office again and is coming back with a cheerful-looking official, who has to mark the trees they are permitted to cut.
Long steep and barely visible trail through wood. Most of work is seemingly actually done by two volunteers from village with their chainsaws, while monks sit around and occasionally roll logs downhill. The hill is steep and a well-pushed log will tumble a long way and out of sight. They will have more work to do later, carrying the logs to the road, loading them onto a truck and unloading at the other end.
*
A surprising story about the important C14 philosopher and saint who is a local icon - he founded the monastery and it is his statue up at the shukti. Evidently he was not always held in such universal esteem, since it turns out that while he was living here (in exile from Tibet), the villagers tried to poison him. The story is that they gave him a cup of local distilled spirit laced with poison, while he was sitting on a huge round ledger stone. He knew of course, and supposedly tipped a little onto the stone, saying something that differs from one account to another - e.g. 'I just want to check if it's strong or not', or 'I can't drink this and neither can this stone' - and the stone broke in three.
You can go and visit the stone - along a path that is not only gorgeous but mostly level, unlike any other path round here. It is a huge circular slab stone which has been split into three like a ginger snap. When I get there some incense is burning, though there is no habitation nearby and no-one is in sight. There is also a well nearby which I gather is water with some holy connection to the great man.
*
Previously when I've ordered milk it's come in an old Royal Himalistan mineral water bottle, but today it is in a bottle labelled 'Black Mountain Whisky'. Not poisoned, I'm happy to report.
*
'I think that's my friend Waggy Wagtail,' I say to Pema as we stand outside his shop. Waggy is coming towards us down the road.
'Where?' he asks, not unreasonably, since no-one can be seen on the road. His English, though fair, is not up to decoding the subtleties of the name Waggy Wagtail.
'There,' I say and point, increasing his mystification, since she is out of sight behind a low fence. When she comes back into view I hail her and she absolutely bounds up the steps to greet me.
*
The shop sells crisps and similar snacks, and they are packed as usual in airtight bags, except that the bags are bulging to bursting point, and are so taut that it is difficult to open them. I noticed this in a casual way when I first saw them, but it has taken me till now to realise that it is due not to some peculiar Himalistani way of filling crisp packets (they come from India anyway), but to the low atmospheric pressure here due to the altitude. I wonder how high you have to take them before they burst.
*
Attendance at the class in the monastery has been patchy lately as students are always off 'working' somewhere, or at a puja in the village, and so forth. (All that will stop when the retreat starts on Monday.) One class had only four, so rather than sit in the classroom I suggested we go for a walk and chat about what we saw. A much more enjoyable class for all of us than usual, and the three of them who rarely if ever can be persuaded to utter anything English beyond a foolish grin were by the end relaxed enough that they made a few halting attempts to say something to me. (The fourth, K, has fair English and unfortunately would insist on translating everything most of the time, but still.)
*
I was only ever given a 3-month visa, and no extension was forthcoming, so I will be back in the UK at the end of September.