Young monk

I wanted to visit an off the beaten path monastery, and I wanted to do a day walk, so I had the bus drop me off in Tsetang, a dusty, soulless Chinese town, the third largest in Tibet. After wandering around for several hours, I discovered the only hotel that would accept me charged 180 yuan room, equivalent to $23. That may not sound like much, but I’ve been paying around $5.

I didn’t have a choice, and I was trapped until the busses left tomorrow morning, so I took it. The room was like a run-down Best Western, but compared to where I’ve been staying it was luxurious. Having my own bathroom with Western toilet and hot shower is much nicer than having to go outside in the cold and down two flights of stairs to take a shower.

Once that was sorted, I started my walk to Trandruk Monastery, along a busy, noisy road, past innumerable walled compounds guarded by Chinese soldiers. It wasn’t very pleasant.

The monastery is part of a network that subdues a deamoness. The Jokang in Lhasa lies over the deamoness’ heart, while Trandruk lies over her left shoulder. You wouldn’t know that by looking at the place. It was free of tourists (and monks), though. Most of its statues were smashed during the Cultural Revolution and were new. There was a board showing the top monks, as well as the supervising police officer, a Tibetan member of a special police force for Tibetans. With an obvious spy at the monastery, I wondered how many of the monks were undercover spies for the government.

Old building

The walk past the monastery was nice as the traffic died down and the ugly, spread out town gave way to fields full of peasants and cows, with mountains all around.

Eventually I arrived at the Yumbulagang, reputedly the oldest building in Tibet, a little castle with a tower perched up on a craggy ridge. The present structure dates from 1982, but it is still very impressive. It was swarming with German tourists who had chartered busses from Lhasa, but it was still very nice, with scenic views of the valley. Inside was a tiny chapel, with a few monks and a lot of Germans.

On the way back I flagged down a bus full of pilgrims to take me back to town. Upon arriving, I had enough energy to walk over to the sad Tibetan part of town, with dirt streets and piles of rocks and garbage everywhere, to visit one of the town’s three monasteries. I wanted to walk the pilgrim path up a nearby hill, but a dust storm kicked up and I was out of energy, so I headed back to my luxurious, private room to enjoy a shower and some Chinese TV. After all, I paid so much for it I have to spend as much time as I can in it.