Day 3

Day 3- Xiahe

We started our day with breakfast at the hotel- bread, butter, watery honey. We then walked 15 minutes until we got to the LeBrang Monastery. As we walked the conditions of the building began to deteriorate. The road turned into a dirt road and the houses were made of cement. Everything was much more muddier and dirtier. We went to several different temples in the LeBrang monastery with our Buddhist monk tour guide- who was strangely attractive with great teeth. He was the only one in the monastery that spoke English. As you may know- I am typing up everything from my journal/ captain's log onto this blog. When I was writing this journal, most of the time...I was riding through rural China on a rickety bus on some steep hill and mountain sides. My handwriting in this journal is truly terrible...worse than usual. At the monastery, our tour guide filled us in with little nuggets of Buddhist knowledge. For example, in Buddhism- there are 1000 different Buddhas. Four Present Buddhas. There is Compassion Buddha, Tantra Buddha, Beauty Buddha..etc. People pray to different Buddhas for different things. In the LeBrang Monastery, there are 2,000 monks. 1,000 different Monks study inthe different colleges and have passed the Buddhist exam. The other 1,000 did not pass the Buddhist exam and put in their 5-6 years before they can enter the college. Most students study philosophy , but some study medicine. There are three ways to categorize people at the monastery- most people living at  the monastery are monks...then you have masters then llamas- llamas are chosen by the masters as early as 3 years old. They are then brought up in the monastery.
I could only take pictures in one of the temples, but I took lots of pictures outside of the temples. I will provide a brief description of what it's like to be in a Buddhist temple.
Here we go.
There are huge copper statues of Buddha everywhere and in the center there is a at least two story tall golden- but copper- statue of Buddha. The whole temple is smoky and hazy because of all the incenses and candles. The incenses are predominately coming out of two incense burners which is on a table with a donation box. There are thangkas on the walls with pictures of Buddha and protectionist guards-(A "Thangka," also known as "Tangka", "Thanka" or "Tanka" is a Tibetan silk painting with embroidery, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, famous scene, or mandala of some sort. The thankga is not a flat creation like an oil painting or acrylic painting. Rather, it consists of a picture panel which is painted or embroidered, over which a textile is mounted, and then over which is laid a cover, usually silk.) A protectionist guard looks something like this: (I really wanted to buy it, but it was wicked expensive).

We went to the Philopshy college/temple. It was also very smoky from the incense and it was a little difficult to breathe-but it's super sacroreligious to cough. There was rows of mats-type seats for the monks to pray on. We passed one room that they were beating gongs and drums and chanting, but we were not allowed to go in.Xiahe was definitely my favorite city on the trip.

After the monastery, we all went to Lunch. I bought hiking boots and Dave bought this rather sexy black capri pants because there was a big gaping hole in his jeans near his special region. I put these hiking boots to good use. We climbed this big hill/mountain type deal and got a beautiful view of the city. It was our third day in Xiahe and the elevation was quite high- 9,512 ft above sea level and the air is much thinner. This climb was  much more difficult than it normally would have been say in Georgia- I was breathing heavily, my heart was pounding, and my adreline was racing. When we finally reached the top, it was worth it.

After some hiking, we all went horseback riding. The scenary was breathtaking- blue skies and rolling hills. At first, Tibetan women led us and then eventually me, Katie, and Dave were let go to ride the horse by ourselves. Syd and Nicole were mad because they actually had riding experience. Eventually Syd got to ride a horse by herself.

Then we met up with the Xian group and had dinner on the grasslands. We all danced around a fire and roasted marshmellows with Tibetans. The best part of the night was our singing contest. We kicked the Xi’an group’s ass. We started off singing the circle of life-led by our Resident Music major Henry. Oh it was great. We also sang Silent Night, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Star Spangled Banner. Also-when you are off the grid in Western China- the stars are breathtaking. It’s most definitely the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. We drank in Spencer and Elias’s room with a bunch of the Xi’an people.

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