Traditions and Books: Thupten Chöling Monastery, Nepal (Nepal 2017-09)

The Thupten Chöling monastery/nunnery is situated on a hillside in the Solu Khumbu at about 8900 ft. altitude. The setting is magical, with neat houses built up a south-facing hillside for the nuns and Tibetian refugees. According to their web page: "Thupten Choling is a celibate Buddhist monastery located in the high and remote mountains of Nepal. Founded by His Holiness Trulsik Rinpoche in the 1960's after fleeing Tibet, it is an independent and autonomous institution. Consequently, Thupten Choling has been able to remain authentically traditional, and hidden from the outside world." It is not exactly hidden today: a couple hours walk up an excellent trail from the town of Junbesi takes you to the monastery.

Wheat biscuits drying in the sun, Thupten Chöling (digital photograph).

Many of the nun's homes were destroyed in the 2015 earthquake, but we saw many brightly-painted new or repaired buildings.

We were allowed into the central prayer room of the gomba, where students were reciting from sacred texts. From Wikipedia, "A gompa is a meditation room where practitioners meditate and listen to teachings. Design and interior details vary from region to region; however, all follow a general design of a central prayer hall containing a murti or thangka, benches for the monks or nuns to engage in prayer or meditation and attached living accommodation." I was a bit uncomfortable taking photographs, but our guide said it was all right, and I tried to be as quiet as possible. There were other distractions that day: a construction crew was building a tower within the room that would project up through the roof eventually. We saw Tibetan holy books on shelves behind neat glass door. A monk said they were from Lhasa, which would make them especially valuable. Religious texts are now printed in India.

The monks generously fed us tea, dry crackers (the things drying in the sun in the 2nd photograph) and McVities Digestive Biscuits. A Tibetian nun who spoke excellent English said I was could photograph in the kitchen. This was a fascinating room with a wood stove on the floor and cauldrons of rice and dahl. They made rice in industrial quantities. The room resembled the ancient kitchen at the Grand Meteoron monastery in Meteora, Greece, which I photographed years ago. The kitchen was dark with light streaming in from one side through clouds of steam. I had to prop my Leica camera on shelves or posts for long exposures.

The 70-year-old 50mm Summitar lens and TMax black and white film does a nice job with the shiny pans and ladles. Click any of the pictures to enlarge them to 1600 pixels wide.

Two of our companions and a Sherpa guide stayed behind for an overnight and then a morning ascent to a sacred cave. The rest of us hiked back downhill to Junbesi, which is a cheerful Sherpa town in the valley.

This part of the Solu is lower altitude than the "real" mountains further north. The hillsides are heavily forested, interspersed with deep ravines and cultivated fields of wheat, barley, and pasture. The traditional expedition route from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp comes through Junbesi. Although most trekkers now fly into Lukla further east, many hikers still walk the entire multi-week route.

The black and white photographs are from Kodak TMax 400 film, taken with a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera with 5cm f/2.0 Summitar lens. This was my father's 1949 camera, recently reconditioned. Praus Productions, Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol developer.

We will visit more monasteries in the next two articles. Thank you for reading.

Out to the Solu Khumbu: Phaplu, eastern Nepal (Nepal 2017-08)

My friends and I were on our way to trek in the Solu Khumbu region in east central Nepal. This is a beautiful forested terrain inhabited by the Sherpa people. We planned to fly to the town of Phaplu, which has a short airstrip carved out of the mountain just below the town. We sat in Kathmandu airport all day, but all the flights were diverted to the town of Lukla. This is where the hoards who tromp to Everest Base Camp and genuine expeditions disgorge. Some 35,000 trekkers a year do the Base Camp forced march, so Lukla is high priority, while a town like Phaplu is lower priority. There was no assurance that the plane would fly to Phaplu the next day. 

OK, change of plan. You need to be flexible in Nepal. We loaded our duffels back onto jeeps, stayed in a hotel in Kathmandu overnight, and set out the next morning.

The 7 hour jeep ride became 13 hours, thanks to tire repair, lunch stop, and rough roads. Some of the main road south to the lowland (the Terai) was well-paved, but some sections were mud, water, holes, stream crossings, and ruts. The road east along the foothills reminded me of Greek mountain roads, but with much poorer paving (where it was paved) and sides that plunged down 3000 ft. An occasional squashed bus or pickup truck lay down in the gullies.

Schoolgirls in Dhulikhel, Nepal

Waiting for the bus, Khukot, Nepal

We stopped for tea in Dhulikhel and lunch (excellent dahl baht, of course) in a market town called Khukot.

Waiting for the bus in Phaplu, and waiting, and waiting....

Phaplu was pretty interesting. It consisted on a main street lined with tens of shops and guesthouses. It is a busy trade town because it is at the end of the main paved road, although secondary roads do fan out to the north. Morning was noisy with trucks, dogs, yelling vendors, tractors pulling laden trailers, motor scooters, and planes droning overhead on their way to Lukla. The people were friendly and pleased to see foreigners (= potential customers).

Tibetan couple, Phaplu

We met the friendly couple who ran the Tibetan Shop. Many of these people are refugees from Tibet after the Chinese invaded in 1953 and proceeded to systematically destroy the culture and religious traditions. The Tibetans are ethnically different than the Sherpa people, who have lived in these valleys and ridges for centuries.

Biscuits, chocolate, and other manufactured goods, Phaplu

Typical Phaplu guesthouse/hotel

Fermenting hot pepper sauce on the windowsill

The black and white photographs are from TMax 400 film from my 1949-vintage Leica IIIC rangefinder camera and 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. The color photographs are from Ektar 100 film shot with a compact Yashica Electro 35CC rangefinder camera with 35mm ƒ/1.8 lens.

The next few Nepal articles will cover the towns and monasteries we visited on our trek north of Phaplu.