I stepped out of the car and was awed by the hundreds and hundreds of prayer flags. The five colors were everywhere; red, blue, green, yellow, and white. Especially white, white was everywhere. Each color represented an element, and each person is associated to an element. I tried to find out what my element was when I was there, but you have to see an astrologer, know a whole bunch of information about your birth and so on. (This is the proper way to determine your element in their culture.) Different people said different elements for different colors, so I never quite found out exactly which colors are for what elements. Some were, white-clouds, blue-water, green-wood, blue-sky, white-air, green-earth, red-fire.
Prayer flags at the pass
More prayer flags
Me in front of some prayer flags
Prayer flags lining the entire ridge-line
Oh, when we first got to the summit, we ran into a shepard with his herd of yaks. Our car scared the yaks and they started running back down the hill when the shepard needed them going on the other side. Let's say, it was probably good that I couldn't understand what he was saying, I have a feeling that a hefty amount of curse words were flying from his mouth.
A yak (whenever Karma saw one of these he would say, "All they do is yak yak yak" then break into a fit of laughter. It was funny the first couple of times.)
From the pass we started hiking across the mountains and into the forest. The forest was beautiful, I felt like I had just stepped into Jurrasic Park. I broke ahead of the group and started messing around on my own. After a few minutes I had a great idea. I darted off the path and hid behind the roots of a fallen tree. I was so excited I could hardly sit still. This was my plan: I would hid in the woods, wait for the guide, my dad, and step-mom to walk by, wait a bit, and then follow them. This was going to be great! First Karma passed, followed by the duo. I waited and crept from my hiding spot. I followed them for probably the next 30 minutes or so. I stayed in a crouch and would sneak behind them. When there was a clearing I would wait for them to go, run across, then slow down and wait for them to get ahead again. It was going great and I could see the nunnery through the trees that was ultimately our destination.
Kila Nunnery, tucked into the hillside
Oh, we were making our way to Kila nunnery, a nunnery only accessible by an hour hike through the hills from the pass. Everything at the nunnery, including the nunnery, got there either on someone's back, or an animals back (probably yaks). Tango Monastery had a similar location. Unfortunately, when we were just about at the nunnery, my step-mother spotted me by happening to turn around when I was exposed and unprepared. None the less, I continued with my game until we got to the stupa marking the beginning of the nunnery.
A few nuns I met at the nunnery
The nuns were all very nice and offered us tea when we got there. I was excited to have some 'nunnery tea' as I hadn't had it since I stayed at Ziluhka. It was oddly comforting and reminded me of the familiar. Most of the nuns were gone when we were there. They had gone to Nepal for some ceremony or ritual. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the nuns playing badminton when I arrived. They seemed to be having a great time and enjoying themselves after lunch.
Two nun girls playing badminton
The nunnery was settled into the side of the hills, and was almost completely protected if it rained by the towering rock walls above. The nunnery is one of the seven oldest in the country. There were a few nuns in meditation and one was just about to come out of a three year meditation. We hiked down from the nunnery and I did not continue my spying/sneaking mission since they had already discovered me, and we came back to the road. From there we got on some bikes and started down the pass. At first I really didn't like the idea. The road was the perfect size, for one car that is. When two cars passed each other, usually both had to have at least have two tires on the dirt. With hairpin turns every 50 yards, I was not very excited to whip around one of these corners and come face to face with a car. And you had to stay on the left side, as would the cars driving down. I forgot this frequently, used to driving on the right side of the road. All in all, the bike ride was incredible. The sights were beautiful, there were very few cars, and I was alive.
When we got back to the hotel I was sore and exhausted. Ah, a nice relaxing bath would do the trick. After the bath, I was even more exhausted. I was delirious and dehydrated. I quickly passed out on the floor. Nausea started to hit shortly after and I passed if off as fatigue. A few minutes later, I was leaning over the stone wall outside the room, puking on the beautifully manicured lawn. A few hours later, I had relieved my body of everything solid, liquid and gas, lost all energy, eight pounds, and any motivation. (I'll spare you a picture of me with my head in a toilet).
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