The Monasteries of Langmusi
We continued on our walk to visit Sezhi Monastery, at the intersection of Gansu Province and Sichuan Province. This little village of Langmusi has two large Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, each with about 600 monks. This is an Amdo Tibetan nomad region and the people are devoutly Buddhist. The first thing we saw were people sitting in front of the very attractive Sezhi Monastery, trying to capture the sights in paint...View image...first one, than another person working on their artwork...View image... And, the next day, we happened to see an entire Chinese art class, palettes and paints in hand, heading for the same spot.
We'd visit the other monastery, Geerdeng Monastery, in Gansu Province tomorrow on the way up to a Tibetan Sky Burial. (More about Tibetan Sky Burials later...) Locals simply refer to them as the Sichuan Monastery and Gansu Monastery.
First we admired a Chinese Mosque, pagoda style...the first we'd ever seen...with exquisite detailing......View image...
Then, Yonten led us up the mountain to Zha Cang Temple with beautiful views in all directions...
Down a mountain path, still on the Sichuan/Szchuan side to visit Tigers Den Valley on White Dragon River. There were elaborate stories about how "White Dragon River" and "Tigers Den Valley" got their names, but they went in my ear and out the other... Just enjoyed the scenery...prayer wheels in White Dragon River, perpetually turning from the river's current...monks relaxing in the grass...
...finally arriving at Fairy Caves and a rock with a famous Lama's footprint in it...it may have been the Lama who told the tiger not to eat people any more...
...there was ex-Marine ahead of us at the Fairy Caves...View image...many prayer flags flying...
From this pretty sight, a walk back to our hotel with time for ex-Marine to practice his few words of Chinese on these young ladies, who spoke perfect English...
and then he became truly excited at the sight of a Korean boy wearing his favorite baseball team shirt...the Chicago White Sox. For all you Chicago Cub fans, there are other Chicago White Sox fans in the world!
