Beth and Larry in Kham ~ 2004

The first 3 weeks

Beth and Larry's trip to Tibet in the summer of 2004 was a major adventure for both of us.  We were part of a group led by our spiritual teacher, Lama Dudjom Dorjee.  The major goal of the first leg of the trip was to attend the dedication of a stupa (a Buddhist reliquary and devotional monument) that Lama Dudjom has built in the area he was born in.  This part of eastern Tibet is called Kham.  Beth went on to spend 4 more weeks in Tibet, including a pilgrimage to fabled Mt. Kailash in western Tibet, while Larry went back to Dallas and his job.  On this web page you'll find some photos taken during the first 3 weeks when Beth and Larry were together. These pictures represent only a fraction of even that part of the trip, but hopefully enough to give you a little flavor of the experience. 

This web page is not intended to chronicle the trip, but I have added some brief comments and descriptions.  The pictures are in roughly chronological order, but not dated.  Will I do one of my travelogues?  Maybe, but other demands on my time have not been conducive.  Beth has written a wonderful account of her trek around Mt. Kailash.  If you have not already received this, it is available on request.  We hope you enjoy the pictures.

All of the images on this website are considerably reduced from their original size.  The originals are generally 1360 x 2048 pixels and resolve to 180 pixels/in.  These images on this site are all about 400 x 600 pixels and 100 pixels/in., both because of the limitation on my personal webspace and to make them reasonable downloads.  If you take a particular interest in something, let me know and I can send you a larger or even full sized file.  The images you see below are just thumbnails, click on them to see the 400 x 600 image.  Use your Back button to return to this page.

	The group freshly arrived at the airport in in the city of Xining, Qinghai province.  At the center is Lama Dudjom Dorjee in the blue shirt.  To the left of Lama-la is his nephew Khamsum, one of our main hosts and benefactors during the entire trip.  I don't know who the Tibetan men to the right of Lama-la are.
	Our hotel in Xining - the "Arura Tibetan Medicine Herbal Spa Center".  A rather remarkable place, brand new and very posh by Chinese standards, with a friendly, helpful staff.  Some even spoke a bit of English.  Their specialty is the availability of pungent-smelling herbal baths piped directly to your room.  There's a small Tibetan hospital immediately next door, which would seem incongruent in the west but makes sense there.
	Dining at the hotel.  Lazy susans seem to be an indispensable feature of better dining, at least in Qinghai province.
	For reasons never entirely clear to me - presumably someone paid for it - we were treated to fairly elaborate entertainments on several occasions.  These would usually be alternating Tibetan folk dances and karaoke performances with Sino-Tibetan pop music videos as a backdrop.  This was at the hotel in Xining.
	Our stay at Arura included a tour of a little museum they maintain, I think mainly to impress potential investors.  (Marketing Tibetan herbal medicines is a significant business in China.)  This is from a display of animals and other sources of substances used in traditional medicine.
	Another room displayed medical thankas, used as visual aids in colleges of traditional medicine.  Here Beth points to a representation of her favorite critter, the goat.
	One of the high passes on the road from Xining to Yushu.  Beth is in the foreground.  Festooning the general area with prayer flags is a traditional gesture of dispensing blessings to the surrounding lands.
	Guards - I guess - at the high pass.  Anyway, two young Tibetan guys with a rifle.  The Chinese don't usually let Tibetans keep  guns, so I assume they had some sort of official capacity, despite the absence of uniforms.  My first look at the bright-eyed Khampas ('men of Kham') I'd heard so much about.  Brothers by the look of them.  Bruce and Sam are posing with them.
	The marker says 5249 meters above sea level.  That's, let's see...17, 216 feet.  Dallas is at about 500 feet or so.  No wonder I got to feeling really bad that first day of rapid altitude gain.
	On the very long, grueling bus ride from Xining to Yushu, driving through the high altitude plateau of northwest Kham, the most remarkable double rainbow appeared.  It was a big, bright, clear, full arc; and seemed to follow the bus for a remarkable distance.  We got out at one point to take pictures.  Even the Tibetans said they'd never seen anything quite like it, and considered it highly auspicious.  I took many pictures of it, but this is my favorite (that's Beth on the right) .
	After we got to Yushu [that's the Chinese name, the Tibetan name is Jyekundo, which Lama-la pronounces 'Cherku' - how's that for confusing?], the first sightseeing we did was the Gyanak Mani, which is the largest collection of Mani stones in Tibet.  'Mani stones' are rocks of varying size carved with the mantram 'Om Mani Padme Hum' or other mantra.  Sometimes they are painted as well.  Circumambulating piles of these stones is a common devotional practice.
	A stupa built among the stones.
	Close-up of some of the stones.
	Near Yushu is the large and beautiful Thrangu monastery, the home monastery of the prominent Kagyu teacher Thrangu Rinpoche.  (Yes, this is where Sam got bit by the dog.)
	A view out from Thrangu monastery.
	Bodhisattva statues under construction behind the main shrine room.  The main shrine room is magnificent, but I have no decent pictures of it.
	Rooms upstairs were crowded with large rupas.  Here is a representation of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) and his consorts.  Guru Rinpoche introduced Buddhism to Tibet, among many other feats.
	Representations of the female bodhisattva Tara.
	An expressive representation of Thonmi Sambhota, the inventor of the Tibetan writing system.
	An artist at work (with some admirers) outside of the Tara shrine room on the up most level of the monastery.
	Tibetan kids near the main door of the monastery.
	What I presume to be a retreat house, in the vicinity of Thrangu monastery.
	The picnic ground where we had lunch that day.  Pleasant locales are pressed into service during the brief Tibetan summer for picnics and recreation.
	Virginia being her charming self, and gratuitous pink flag.
	During that same eventful day we visited Tenga monastery.  This is the main door, featuring Karmapa flags.
	Shakyamuni Buddha mural at Tenga monastery.
	Stacked drums and mural at Tenga monastery.
	Masks for ritual dances.
	Next destination after Yushu was the smaller town of Dzato.  Here are some of the hills overlooking the town.  The is also the main route for the yaks that climb up to graze during the day and return to their owners' property in town at night.
	An interior view of our opulent dining tent.  We were treated like royalty.  Our hosts were various relatives and friends of Tachö, Lama-la's wife.  (Depicted are Kathy, Ben, Bruce, Virginia & Sam.)
	The mother of some of the girls that served us.  Front and back views of her traditional Kham garb and ornaments.  You can see a bit of our campsite in the background.
	Another view from Dzato town.
	Clothes with western letters and English-like phrases are popular all over China.  They are rarely grammatically correct, but this example is unusually meaningless.  (This is one of the charming young ladies that served our meals in Dzato.)
	Above Dzato is a small Dzogchen monastery (not the famous Dzogchen monastery, but a branch of it.)  Above that is a charnel ground.  With the permission of Khamtrul Yönten Gyamtso Rinpoche - Tachö's cousin and our host in Dzato - we climbed up to visit the charnel ground.  This is a view outward from that area.  (The altitude here was in excess of 14000 ft.  It was a challenging climb.)
	Some of you know of the Tibetan custom of 'sky burial', which is to say that corpses are butchered in the open air for ease of consumption by vultures and other carrion eaters.  There was no funeral that day, but discarded clothes and fragmentary human remains were scattered across the hill side.  In this photo, the cutting implements are plainly seen, along with remnants of shrouds and mani stones.
	Skull fragment and flowers.
	Skullcap and flowers.
	There is a small building at the charnel ground, containing images painted on stones of the 100 Peaceful & Wrathful deities that appear to beings in the Bardo (intermediate state between death and rebirth.)
	Bruce viewing the deity images.  Bill and a monk are behind him.
	Seeing humans at the charnel ground, the local vultures assumed that a meal was imminent.  We were regretful to disappoint them, but I did take the opportunity to snap some pictures.  These are huge birds, the wing span looked to be 6 feet or so.  Their fluffy down was all over the place.
	Kathy among prayer flags above the charnel ground.
	Picture of me that Beth took on the slope.  Dzogchen monastery in the background.
	Bruce with monks back down at Dzogchen monastery.
	Beyond Dzato we ventured into nomad land, where we stayed with relatives of Khamsum.  Tibetan nomads live year round in tents, tending herds of yaks and other livestock.  Here is a view of the campsite.  Special fancy tents were set up for dining and for our servers.
	A closer view of our campsite.  Note the ubiquitous yak dung.
	Yak herd.  These animals are superbly adapted to high altitude, and in fact cannot survive at lower elevations.  The nomads rely heavily on the yaks for their survival.
	Pile of mani stones in a field near our campsite.  You can run across these anywhere in Kham.  The carving is sometimes exquisite, but regardless of their aesthetic merit, the devotion involved is always moving.
	View from our campsite.  I believe that's me in the distance, photo by Beth.
	Traditional cooking tent.  The material is woven yak hair.  Jeep is less traditional.
	Interior view of cooking tent.  Note the mud oven with vegetation growing on it.  The fuel is dried yak dung, which is not nearly as objectionable as you would imagine.  The yaks eat only grass, herbs and flowers.  In case you're wondering, yak meat is chewy but very tasty.
	Milking a dri (female yak).  The Tibetan work 'yak' actually refers only to the male.
	Slightly out-of-focus shot of Bruce getting a horse ride.  These little horses are full grown.  The traditional mode of transport, they are now largely supplanted by motorcycles.
	There is a Buddhist custom of 'buying' an animal to save it from slaughter.  The owner is paid an appropriate sum and the animal's ear is threaded with colored ribbons to show that it is exempt from slaughter and will be allowed to live out its' natural lifespan.  Bruce and I went in together to 'buy' this 2-year old.
	Rinpoche's jeep gets stuck crossing a river on the way to the stupa dedication.  It was eventually extricated by towing with another vehicle.  Nomad camp in the background.
	The stupa consecration.  Khamsum in the foreground with camera; Rinpoche and monks behind makeshift censer.
	Some onlookers at the dedication ceremony.
	Kham ladies in traditional clothing and ornaments.  Kham boy in traditional jean jacket.
	Lama Dudjom Dorjee and stupa.
	View from main stupa, including smaller stupas (1 of each kind of stupa, I think..)
	Another view of the stupa.
	A few images from the days spend retracing our route back.  These are typical Khampa men in Dzato.  It may seem like an unremarkable image, but I was very nervous taking it.  There was quite a crowd around us, and Khampa men are a little wild and unpredictable, to say the least.
	Scene from an especially elaborate banquet back in Yushu, sponsored by Khamsum.  Our servers, not content with merely serving, sang and danced for us continuously.
	Doorway at a large Sakya monastery above Yushu.
	The last Khampa town as we headed back north toward Xining.  I enjoyed the 'wild West' quality of seeing horses tied up in the middle of town.
	Beth posing near flower-covered ornamental display in Xining.  Xining has a reputation as a dowdy provincial backwater, but the day we spend strolling around, it struck me as economically vital and surprisingly modern.
	Back to civilization(?)  A famous shopping street in Beijing.  It was very bizarre to see McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. after 3 weeks in Kham.