Crazy weezy!!!

Last night I slept in a Tibetan monastery. I met two Tibetan men when I was in Bodhgaya, the city where the Buddha meditated for 6 weeks under a bodhi tree before he attained Enlightenment. They lived in Darjeeling. We met again at the train station, and I followed them because now I figured out that it’s much better to be accompanied in India than on my own. As we get to Darjeeling, one of the guys says that his friend, who barely ever spoke to me, lives and works in this big Tibetan monastery, and that they would welcome me and let me sleep there if I wanted to. He said ’so do you want to stay there?’, I was a bit surprised, didn’t expect it at all but I said, ‘OK sure I’ll stay in the monastery’ and two minutes later we were there. He showed me to a beautiful little room, very cosy, I was delighted. Then he said follow me and showed me where he lives, introduced me to his wife, who was already preparing lunch for us. Charming people they were.
The only problem with being with my Tibetan friends was the tea. They love their tea and always hand you a cup of tea, even during prayers in the temple. But I can’t for the life of me, as polite and nice as I try to be, I cannot drink it. It just litterally makes me want to throw up. The recipe is as follows: a tiny bit of tea, salt, tons of milk, and tons of butter. Go try to find the taste of tea in there. It’s hideously disgusting, especially given I hate both milk and butter.
Anyway I went for a walk that afternoon in the village, slightly out of Darjeeling. The monastery looked massive, hanging by the side of the mountain, red and white, with monks dressed in dark red in every corner.
I walked into a small police station because I wanted to find out the name of the monastery. I am meeting my Polish friend tomorrow in Darjeeling and I had to email him where to find me. The policeman says ‘Dali monastery, the name of this village is Dali’. I walk slowly back to the monastery, and I start chatting with those two little kids walking back home after school. They ask me where I’m staying and I say ‘Dali monastery’. And they repeat ‘Ah ok Dali monastery’. And it’s at that point that it finally rang a bell.
Once before on this trip I spent a few nights in a Buddhist monastery. In China. I studied kung-fu there. Close to Kunming. And it struck me. In Dali. Dali, China, buddhist monastery and now I’m here in this Tibetan monastery, pretty one in the mountains, 400 monks, in Dali, India…

~ by jenniferldp on April 18, 2009.