my journal to help me keep the names straight of all the people I had met and the places we stayed for future reference.
Nov. 8 - Machermo at 15,000 ft. We crossed paths with some Rai clan women carrying their babies to a hospital which was an all day trek for them. I gave her my blessing string that Tengboche Rinpoche gave me. We also saw a wild male peacock and
some hens, some baby and adult yaks and a musk deer. We arrived late in the afternoon in Machermo where our g
roup was lounging by the wood stove drinking milk tea to keep warm. I met a nice Tibetan guy there who gave m
e a teaching on Buddhism; he was very knowledgable and I gave him a photo of Karma Kuchen Rinpoche who is a lineage holder and gave me some teachings and initiations just the prior month in Colorado. Most people are followers of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche who was the teacher of Karma Kuchen Rinpoche (who no one in the Khumbu knew yet) and the previous lineage holder. This Tibetan guy knew him though and we spent the evening talking about it. He was watching the baby while his wife cooked for us and the baby sat in his carrier and never cried the entire night. He just played with a dangling medallion of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama and was content at doing that.
The group did not feel well that night when many people got sick from the food. Several were up all night and I was a little nauseous too. It was then I decided to camp on our next trek with a chef to cook for us since it is more
controlled and clean water is used.
Nov 9 - We drank mint tea and headed up the hill toward Gokyo Ri (peak). The first lake is an emerald color and covered with cairn piles of stones. Then we arrived in Gokyo where the lake is a marine blue and clear as crystal. We settled into our lodge in Gokyo village at 16,800 ft. or so and everyone went to bed early after marveling at the gorgeous view of the glacial lake at sunset.
Nov 10 - We rose from our deep slumber at around 4 am and dressed in our clothes as if we were skiing since the temps that high are freezing. One of the guys from our group got altitude sickness and was unable to make it. He went back to the lodge with Jetha our porter who met us back on the trail after dropping him off. I took some great sunrise shots of the village Ngozumpa Glacier, Taujun Lake and surrounding peaks as I kept ascending to keep warm. On top we were rewarded with an incredible view of the highest mountains in the world including Everest, Nuptse, Makalu Cho Oyu, and Lhotse. A golden statue of Buddha Shakymoni was on
top covered in prayer flags flapping hard in the wind. We savored the view as long as we could, ate some snacks and headed back down with a full sunny view now. At the base, we ate a big breakfast of Tibetan pancakes, eggs and porridge and hit the trail which was all down hill from there.
At one point I was walking alone which I like to do for the peaceful, quiet solitude and I could hear beautiful singing coming from behind me. I looked back and could then hear yak bells and whistling from the yak herder. I grabbed my camera and began to video knowing they would crest the hill soon. Five beautiful yak walked over the hill followed by a young, Sherpa yak herder named Tashi Tsering Sherpa who would help to shape the future of many things for me.
I had read about the Buddha (saint) Padmasambava who meditated in caves in a village above Namche Bizzare called Khumjung, but in all of the many Sherpa people I talked to about Buddhism, no one really knew where the cave was. Tashi told me as he whistled to his yak in the tune of a Sherpa song, that he was from Khumjung and asked me where I was headed. I told him that I was also going to Khumjung in a couple of days and asked if he knew where the cave was of Padmasambava (Guru Rinpoche). He said he knew and had been there before since he grazed his yak on the mountain. I asked him if he would take me there and he agreed and gave me his cell phone number. I was very excited about the prospect of seeing this cave. I asked him to sing another song and recorded him continuing on the trail singing and whistling.
We crossed through beautiful fall colored forests and valleys and had lunch at a lodge in Phortse Tenga where Muthi fancied the Rai girl who worked in the kitchen. He helped a lot that day with lunch preparation.
Nov 11 - We stayed the night in Mongla at 12,000 ft. where I met an elderly woman that turned out to be
(Nyima Rita's in Boulder) aunti. She gave me a photo of herself to give him. She was very friendly and she wore traditional Sherpani clothing as all the elderly did and many of the younger ones in the village as well. She wore prayer beads around her neck and mumbled Padmasambava's mantra "Ohm Mani Pedma hum" under her breath now and then as some of them do. They believe they summon his spirit and bring peaceful thoughts to the world with this utterance of his mantra. Today we would make it to Khumjung and I can't wait to get there. It has a mountaineering museum and a beautiful view of Ama Dablam and Everest and the cave....I hoped he really knews where it was.
I immediately started asking about this cave and the owner of the lodge knew about it but didn't know exactly where it was; he only knew it was about a 2 hour hike up the hill behind the village. I met a young Chetri girl that night who was in college at Kathmandu University taking film making as a major. She was trekking to Everest Base Camp with some colleagues to protest global warming and attend a conference gathering there. I asked her about her village and what need was there since I was doing research for humanitarian projects. She was very intelligent and informed about what was happening in Nepal and she told me that the greatest need was water in her village in the East of Nepal. We talked about Engineers without Borders and the work they do there and she told
me a story about her uncle being high on a cliff trying to bring water down to the village with a pipe. He fell and they called her and asked her to get a helicopter there. She tried but was unable to pay thousands of dollars to get it there and an hour later they called her and told her he had died. There is no health care facility close enough to help him there. This seemed to be a common problem there. We agreed to stay in touch by email.
Nov 12 - I called Tashi Tsering and he met me at the lodge. We packed a day pack with snacks and warm clothes since it was a cold and cloudy day. We stopped at his house and talked to his parents who I asked
their interest in growing medicine herbs and they said they would if they could make a little money. We then climbed the hill passing sheep, and grazing yak who Tashi said were his friend's yak. It felt very mystic because clouds passed in front of us and it was very misty and cool. We came to a wall which had an Ohm symbol on it and Tashi said it was self made in the rock so they called the area Ohm even though there were no inhabitants there. Just above that rock we arrived at the cave which was full of hundreds of prayer flags. I leaned on the rock to rest and was surprised to find it hot as if the sun had been beating on it all day--despite that it was cold and full of clouds. I could smell incense, yet no one was around. Tashi had been collecting incense from plants on the way up and juniper to burn for a puja so we went inside and burned them and said some prayers. Then we found an opening into the rock going deeper into the mountain and Tashi took my headlamp and my hand and led me into an abyss of small openings and we climbed out the top to an opening where he said Padma sambava did most of his meditating and we did another puja with a photo of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambava) and HH Karma Kuchen Rinpoche under the eye of the sacred Kumbila peak where the diety of the same name resides who Guru Rinpoche subdued demon qualities of and made him a protector of the area. This mountain is forbidden to climb.
Tashi then took me to his house and made me a delicious fresh nak milk chai--compared to the usual powdered milk, it was wonderful. He gave me a hand prayer wheel for a gift from his shrine which centered around Guru Rinpoche and while he cooked the tea he told me about Heleshi (Maratika in Tibetan/Sherpa language) where Guru Rinpoche obtained the long life level of enlightenment with his consort Mahadava in a 3 month ritual in a large cave there. Many sites are sacred and blessed there and he told me how lush and beautiful it was and how Hindu and Buddhist people pilgrimage there for many sacred sites. Then I decided to start my next trek there. We mapped out a camping trek spending 2 days in Maratika and 18 days total in the Solu Khumbu to Duhd Kunde Lake, a day hike up Pike Ri, Thopten Choeling (home of the Tibetan Trulshik Rinpoche - considered the eldest and most learned lama alive who was taught in Tibet and is a teacher of the Dalai Lama). We will pass through Namche Bizzare mainly for the Tibetan Flea Market and internet and then stay in Kumjung for 2 days since there are so many things to see there including the Guru Rinpoche cave. Even for those who are not religious, it will be a great cultural and historical journey. We will also pass through Tengboche Monastery to observe a daily practice there and stay in Pangboche to see the oldest monastery in Nepal. We will fly out of Lukla back to Kathmandu and spend a day in Pharping seeing many sacred sites of Guru Rinpoche and his consort and wife Yeshi Tsogyal as well as other dakini sites of Tara and others. This is among the most sacred sites in the world as well. We will also see some UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Boddha Naht, Swambunaht, Patan Durbar Square and Baktapur at the end for shopping--21 days total trek. I became very excited with this trek which was already planned with the exceptio
n of Pharping and Maratika so this is an excellent addition and I had never been to either place. We agreed to keep in touch and he said he might come along with us to Maratika.
Nov 13 - We trekked down past chortons always careful to pass on the left as the Buddhists require for energetic reasons, we crossed the river, stopped at waterfalls, and ended up in Jorsale (the National Park Entrance gate) again and stayed in a lodge there. There were a lot of kids on the trail near the lodge who were playing and greeting us. We tossed a ball around with them and joked with them since they spoke a little English. I met a nice Czech guy Stefan and we talked about his work and transition in life etc. This lodge was called Buddha lodge and had a temple/prayer room so I took advantage of it and did some practice in there; otherwise it's hard to find the privacy for it.
Nov. 14 - Stefan and I hit the trail a little earlier than the rest of the group and chatted about many things; interesting guy. We stopped at a bakery for tea and a slice and allowed the group to catch up. We stopped for lunch in Ghat at the top of the pass and I met a woman who ended up being Nyima Rita Sherpa's (a friend in B
oulder) aunt. She gave me a photo of herself to give him and I asked her if she needs anything from American that I planned to be back in the Spring. She said she needs shoes. The same size as her sister Chokpa in Kathmandu, who I already promised to bring a pair for next Spring. We could see people passing by through the large windows and turning the prayer wheel in the center courtyard as we waited for our lunch which usually took at least an hour since everything is made from scratch and the stoves are fueled by wood. We passed a large painted mani stone to the left and headed for the next village. We decided to end our day at the Everest Guest House that evening.
Nov. 15 - After breakfast on the trail we saw several school kids walking to school in their uniforms looking very clean and sharp. They like to speak English and say hello, how are you and any other phrase they can think of. Very friendly and intelligent are the kids in Nepal. When given the opportunity, they flourish. We passed some pack donkeys headed up by a decorated leader. For some reason they smell more than yaks. A funny thing happened when we stopped for the evening in Juving. The lodge owner looked so familiar to me; but I couldn't place him. He said he didn't think we had met before. I thought about it and then finally asked him if he had a brother in Colorado that worked at a restaurant in Boulder because he looked just like, not that brother, but his other brother Lhakpa in Utah who holds a speed record for climbing Mt. Everest and has summited 12 times. He had a nice family and I took pictures for the family in Colorado.
Nov. 16 Today as we head further down into the valleys of the Khumbu, we pass through Kharikhola. We see few yaks and more donkeys since yaks like the high altitudes and many flowered tress and poinsettia trees and vegetable gardens and farm animals. There is a beautiful monastery on the top of about a hundred stairs that looks down into the deep valley. Across the valley we could see our guide's home village Chulemo in the Thaksindu area. I visited the monastery alone and did a bit of practice then joined the group for dinner.
Nov. 17 We passed through a village that had a huge landslide recently which destroyed one home a
nd damaged another. Luckily no one was killed. The farms and landscape is just gorgeous here--so many flowered trees and rhododendron trees and pine forests and people are really friendly in these lower lands. The culture here hasn't changed in 600 years when the the Tibetan lamas began migrating into this land. Guru Rinpoche predicted in texts of the 8th century that these valleys would become a sanctuary for Tibetan people during troubled times which it indeed did. We stopped early enough in the day that we had the opportunity to do laundry at a spicket outside the lodge which had beautiful gardens outside and a clothes line. Some of the group played cards as they often did in the evenings. I sat around the wood stove talking to the other people in the lodge and exchanging stories of our trekking adventures. Mostly we all marveled at the culture and the people and how simply they lived and how happy they were in general.
Nov. 18 - Finally we ended up in Chulemo which we had all been looking forward to since our guide's family and friends were from there. They had known many guide's and porters along the way and lodge owners, but we would now stay in the home of their family and cook with them. I greeted Karma's mother and explained to her that I was a good friend of her son, which she already knew since he had just been there a few days before and told her I would be coming. I met his sister Puti and his other sister and brother Dawa. They were very nice. Jetha Rai (our porter) cooked the two days we stayed there and he is a fantastic chef! He is so talented too: he played the flute, the drums, sang and danced well and cooked excellent, not to mention carry loads that most people couldn't even pick up let along carry all day. He also had a very humble attitude and was very caring to other people--always putting himself last and happy to do it. I really liked him and had a great time with him. He also taught me a lot of Nepali language and songs. At one point as we were walking on a trail, he picked up a leaf and played a popular Nepali song that we had been singing all along on the trail, in perfect pitch too! He's amazing. He works for our Sherpa guide in his home and has a wife and two kids. He is not able to afford to put his kids in school so I decided to look for a sponsor for them since this year one of them will start school and next year the other. We visited some of their friends in the area and had lots of cha (milk tea) since they will never let your cup get even half full. Even though they have very little, they are always giving to anyone who visits.
Yangdi Sherpa's (a good friend of mine in Colorado) niece, Llemi met us on the trail and we visited her sister (cousin) and son along the way. While I sat sipping tea, she went outside in her garden and picked a bunch of marigolds and strung them together to give me as a gift when I left.
Nov. 19 The trekking group had collected some duffles of school supplies for the kids and clothing for the village, so there was a sort of flea market happening and people came by one by one to look at the items. Two of them made plans to do some work at a school in the area called Nuntela. In the evening, Karma's family served us roxy, a lethal home made grain alcohol. Needless to say, lots of dancing and laughing happened that night. We all had a great time and the family showed me photos of Karma and the family when he was young.
Nov. 20 We left the family and friends we had made with a kata (white scarf) ceremony usual to their culture for luck and respect. Then we trekked to Thaksindu where many more of my Sherpa friends in Colorado are from. Yangdi's great aunt is a nun that lives at the nunnery there and Karma's uncle is the caretaker at the
Thaksindu Monastery. We stayed at the Babu Tsering Lodge who is a cousin of theirs and is the record
holder of spending 21 hours on top of Mt. Everest without oxygen. He died 2 years ago near the base camp. I had met his wife who visited Colorado the prior year, but she lived in this area with their kids now. I took the opportunity for a hot shower there since it was one of the few places where it was available. Normally I order hot water at night from the kitchen and wash up before dinner that way. It felt great!!
Nov. 21 The monastery held a puja especially for our group which was beautiful with chanting and horns and the beating of a drum. The nuns saw that I was a practitioner and invited me to pray with them. Nuns and monks normally sit in separate areas in monastery because of their monastic vows. We were served hot chai during the ceremony which is nice because the monasteries are notoriously cold. I prostrated at the shrine and offered a kata to the rinpoche for a blessing. Outside it was warm and sunny which felt good. I talked with the nuns about the problem of nuns in Tibetan Buddhism not being able to be fully ordained. They didn't seem too comfortable talking about it or even knowledgeable about it, so I didn't push the issue. Part of the etiquette of a monk or nun is not to question their teacher or teachings, so this is probably where the reluctance came from. However, I am not a nun, so I can question and did many people on the subject. I saw Vicky from our group on the trail who was a very kind woman and she gave me a hug, told me to be careful and that she admired my ability to be able to take off on my own like that. I told her I admired her ability to tolerate constantly being in a large group like that. To me it was much easier to go off on my own which has so much more freedom to it.
I had decided to take off to Thupten Choling to see the large monastery and try to meet His Holiness Trulshik Rinpoche; so after the puja, I donned my full pack and hit the trail. Man was it heavy!! I trekked up and down hills for about 4 hours until I reached Jumbesi and stopped at the Apple Garden Lodge which is a beautiful lodge with large rooms and hot (albeit bucket) showers. There is a nice lounge area there too. I met some German people and chatted by the fire with them for the evening.
Nov. 22 - I was very excited to finally see Thupten Choling Gompa (monastery). I got lost on the trail several times, but finally would find a way that people would say was the correct way. I ended up on the trail that leads to the Tibetan Medicine hospital on the monastery grounds which I had planned to do after visiting the gompa, but since I was there, I went inside. I was there to do research on the project I was interested in pursuing regarding Tibetan medicine herb gardens. No one spoke English there, and my Tibetan was still only a dozen phrases long. A Tibetan nun finally led me to a Sherpa guy who spoke English very well, Lama Sonam Tsering. We started talking about Tibetan medicine and his schooling there. He said he would graduate as a Tibetan medicine doctor next year and then would move back to his home town Maratika (Heleshi)! I told him I was starting my next trek there and we talked a lot about the village and how sacred it was and he told me about his uncle, Maratika Rinpoche who does all the long life pujas for people since it is where the 2nd Buddha (Padmasambava attained long life enlightenment there) and told me about the large caves where he meditated, etc. He invited me for lunch since we obviously had so much to talk about. I told him then that my interest was in planting Tibetan medicine herb gardens. Then he explained how he will be planting one when he returns to Maratika after graduating and that first they want to build a health post since there is none for him to care for the people in the area. He said I should talk to his uncle and that maybe in Kathmandu we can arrange a meeting since his uncle was going there tomorrow. We talked all day and in the evening I went to the gompa to the evening practice.
I removed my shoes outside, put my skirt on in a back room I found full of potatoes and slipped in wondering if it was okay. A lama who was seated in the back center and looked to have some authority, motioned me to sit to the right of him on a mat. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. There were probably 4 hundred monks and nuns (seated separately of course) in the room. On one side I could hear a low hum and then they all began to chant out of their long, rectangular, wooden Tibetan prayer books as they turned over each unbound page. Unlike some of the other practices I had attended, these people were so dedicated and serious and really into it. Sometimes they would break from chanting and a few of the centrally located monks would blow horns or turn a hand drums back and forth which reminded me so much of the two times I had been in the presence of the Dalai Lama that it gaves me chills on my whole body every time.
After the ceremony finished, I stole my way up the stairwell where I was led to His Holiness's chamber where I was told he was in a meditation retreat for healing for a month. That didn't break my determination to try to get a meeting with him. As I sat down on the bench, a young Sherpa girl (Phurwa) of 14 years started talking with me. She didn't speak much English, but translated what she could to the lamas guarding HH's chamber. They went inside and came back with some mundrup (blessed herbs to take when not feeling well or when traveling) and a blessed red string for putting around my neck and a kata blessed by Kyabje (His Holiness). Phurwa told me that I should stay the night with her and that I could see Kyabje in the morning and that I could stay with her aunt who was a nun there. I followed her up a steep hill with a small dirt path to a very small hut. She knocked a lot before a very large woman in her 70's answered the door and let us in. She offered us cha and Phurwa spoke a lot and she almost none. I would find out later that she took a vow not to speak 3 years ago; only to chant. At one point I looked over at her mantle and saw a photo of Yangdi! I said hey! that's my friend Yangdi and her niece Tashi! She said it was her sister's daughtor. Yangdi's mother was her sister and had passed away less than a year prior. I was pretty surprised to find that out of 700 monks and nuns, I would end up in Yangdi's aunti's place. I told them I had to go back down to the gompa to find Sonam so he could translate when I met HH and I found out later her reluctance was that I would not be meeting him at all. Phurwa was determined to attend the evening ceremony at the gompa and I didn't know how to get back to Ani's; so I waited for her. Finally I went in and sat down in the same spot as before and then she joined me there. She kept trying to talk to me and I told her she couldn't talk during ceremony, but she continued and then decided to stand up which isn't allowed during ceremony. I decided it was time to go outside and she followed me so we headed up the hill in the dark and had a hard time finding Ani's house among the hundreds of others just like it. Some Ani's at the bottom of the hill finally helped us find her place.
Phurwa and I shared a small bed and all during the night Ani (nun) would wake up and chant which surprised me because I thought she was mute. She would sit up and light a candle and chant until she fell asleep again. I was awed by her devotion to become enlightened and to the Buddhas.
Nov. 23 - In the morning, we made cha and I tried to find out from Ani if she needed anything, groceries or anything from Yangdi. She said only rupies from Yangdi and as far as groceries, the language barrier was difficult and Phurwa wasn't interested in doing any of that and then we ran out of time so we left. I told Ani that I thought she would attain enlightenment in this lifetime. We went back up to HH's chambers and a nun came out with a handful of blessed strings which Phurwa shoved in her pocket and we left. I was glad to be on the trail alone again for the solitude and walked down the hill to Jumbesi and exhilerated by all I had learned at Thopten Choling and all of the syncronicities that happened there.
The lodge owner of Apple Gardens was worried since I didn't show up last night and said I would. Apparently he called the medical clinic looking for me. He was relieved I was okay. I paid, ate breakfast and left for Phablu hoping to find the rest of the group so that I could share quarters--cash was getting pretty low and it's a lot more expensive to travel alone.
When I arrived in Phablu, I could see the runway, but a sign was pointing out up some stairs the hospital and other facilities of Phablu, so I asked some soldiers and they told me to go up the stairs to get there. I went up the stairs and the trail finally ended at the hospital (smart ass soldiers!) so I took the opportunity to talk to 3 doctors who were sitting on a bench in the sun with no patients to see. It was an allopathic (western medicine) hospital/medical clinic they told me. It was relatively clean and fairly empty. I asked them why they didn't practice traditional (Tibetan) medicine and they said they had no training for it, but that a few medicines they used were traditional. I told them how powerful I thought Tibetan medicine was and that it was unfortunate they didn't have more training in medical school for it. Then I headed back down the trail and as I reached the intersection again, I saw Pasang Sherpa (a nephew-cousin of Yangdi and Karma) who acted as one of our guides. Perfect timing again! I followed the group to the lodge they were about to check into and we ordered food. After our meal a nun and lama I had met on the trail showed up. I went to the owner and paid for their room and chai (later I would find out the lama was rich). Oh well, good karma never hurt. Then Sonam Tsering showed up! I couldn't believe the coincidence. He told me he was with his uncle who was the Rinpoche at the Maratika Gompa and on the committee for the village so I should talk to him about my possible interest in a Tibetan medicine project there. He came in and introduced himself as Karma, very humble. I wasn't sure weather to prostrate or not. He insisted I don't and sit with hi
m to talk, so we did for a while. He told me about the herb garden and health post they wanted to build and said they had a hard time with money though. I told him of my interest in helping in this area as well. Some professional local dance group came in to perform for us, so our conversation ended and he went to bed. The rest of us danced and sang Nepali songs for a few more hours.
Nov. 24 - In the morning, after breakfast, Karma La and I talked more about his plans for building the health post which he believed was the most urgent need there. We discussed the trek in Spring there and he said he could guide us to the caves of Guru Rinpoche and others and then he could perform a long life puja for our group. This is the best place for long life empowerment because it's where Guru Rinpoche attained long life and where all the rinpoches go for this purpose including HH Trulshik Rinpoche.
My flight kept getting delayed to Kathmandu which is fairly normal for Phablu because of winds up higher in the canyon and weather and fog. Karma La and I were talking outside in the sunshine about the need for expertise of growing the gardens when a very distinguished looking man walked up with a traditionally dressed Tibetan woman. Karma La stopped our conversation and bowed to him and introduced him as Amchi (Tibetan for doctor). He is the physician for HH Trulshik Rinpoche and was with his mother to see her off to Kathmandu. This man had the exact knowledge we were talking about needing which is which plants to grow, how to grow them and who to sell them to. Amchi is also Sonam's teacher at Thopten Choeling and for many other current doctors. A better person could not have entered the scene at that moment. I was blown away by the coincidence again and was realizing that this project was what I was meant to do. We spent a couple of hours talking about our common interests. He said he would help us in any way he could. His wife and family live in India,but he will teach doctors in Nepal for 2 years. I mentioned that it would be great if he could come to U.S. and teach some doctors. He said we could consider that idea. There was no other explanation for it. Also, I have every confidence in Sonam Tsering. He is a man of integrity, ultra intelligent and a very dedicated to his work.
Our flight finally came and we took off through the Himalayan peaks once again. It is mesmerizing beauty. I was excited to get back to Kathmandu and my friends there and Boddhanaht and anxious to check my ema
il and do laundry and meet with all the people who I had planned to meet regarding the gardens.
Jetha Rai (our porter and friend), Karma and Phurwa's sister Leki (who came along with us to do dental work) and I went to Phurwa's house in Bouda (just behind the big stupa - Bouldanaht) since he works there and I would be staying there for a few days. It is convenient to stay there since all my meetings each day were at the stupa and that's where I liked to spend my time anyway. I called Lhakpa and he said he would meet me there the next morning; he goes there every day also to circumambulate and turn prayer wheels.
It was nice to be able to settle for a few days, shower, do laundry and organize my packs. But now I had to get organized. I had a lot of meetings and much information to gather and only 10 more days. I began to make phone calls and set up meetings. Jetha cooked us a wonderful meal of curry and dahl and I slept very well.
