This morning we walked up to the monastery above Thame where we’d arranged to have an expedition puja ceremony (blessing) by the local monks. The room in which it took place was a riot of colour; painted cieling, painted walls, hangings, effigies of buddha, photographs of important monks, flowers, candles.......The whole of the wall behind the monks was made up of little painted boxes, each containing an incantation. Presumably the appropriate one was chosen for our trip, and as we sat round on the floor, four monks in their burgundy robes, one topped off by a matching puffa jacket, began to chant. After a while of this chanting, one of those wonderfully evocative horns was blown, and the instruments were introduced; a pair of carved cymbals with semi-hemispherical middle sections, played horizontally, and a large, brightly-painted circular double-skinned drum that hung from the cieling producing a deep, beautifal cadenced sound. The result s were amazing; kind of tuneful, yet atonal, slightly soporific rhythmic and soothing all in one. This continued for about half an our, so I guess we got well & truely blessed, then the head monk (who looked well-hard, a bit like Bullet Proof Monk in th movie), blessed the kharta (scarves) we’d previously been given, along with, in my case, a lucky charm I’d been given by a friend before I left. That afternoon we went along to a small village nearby where a local artist lived in pretty basic style. He’d been caught out on a pass trading with Tibet and had been trapped in a snow-hole for four days wrapped only on the blankets he’d come to trade. He emerged with terrible frost-bite in his hands and feet. After a year in hospital he is left with stumps for all 4, but he’s learned to paint the most beautiful pictures; scenes of the valley and buddhist symbols. Tomorrow, we will be moving upwards again.......
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