Nepal Day 18 - Lungden to Thame plus side trip to Thame Monastery

 6.1 miles, 331‘ climbing

Monastery side trip: 2.4 miles, 1309’ climbing

Paradise Lodge, Thame, 12,510’ elevation

Last night when we went to our room, the night sky was clear and full of stars. It was also cold, so we didn’t hang around long admiring a sky with no light pollution, no clouds, no moisture in the atmosphere above us.

We had an easy trek to Thame today, a gradual descent on a dirt track that was comfortable underfoot. The path was narrow in one place where there had been a landslip, but relaxing overall. We crossed a couple bridges, saw small settlements on both sides of the river, passed a bunch of unattended cows and dzopkyos who made their way out to the hillside to graze for the day. By late morning clouds were moving in. We hoped 4 trekkers from Hamburg at the lodge made it up to the pass in time for the views.

The Thame valley has its share of trekkers, but they don’t seem to dominate the way of life here. It felt like we were seeing a slice of everyday life for the people who live here. We passed a lady out gathering yak dung to burn while carrying her toddler in a basket on her back. A couple people had dug up a winter’s store of potatoes in their yard in preparation for spring planting. We saw mani walls again with their ancient inscriptions.

As we approached Thame, we saw more mani walls, some stupas and prayer flags. Thame is divided into upper Thame and Lower Thame. Lower Thame experienced a devastating flood a couple years ago when a glacial lake let loose. First we headed to Paradise Lodge to book a room and get some lunch. We washed a couple of articles of clothing outdoors in a bucket and hung them on a line, then headed out to the Thame Monastery.

There was a long staircase leading up to the monastery past some chortens and mani walls. We slipped our shoes off and were given a tour of the monastery by a young monk who appeared to be in his early 20s and spoke very good English. The paintings are hundreds of years old. There are many books of prayers written in Tibetan script that were brought to the monastery when the Chinese cracked down on Buddhism in Tibet. We could feel how ancient and deeply held the beliefs are, how sacred the different objects and statues are, how devout the followers are. Then we had a moment of levity when the monk asked us if our feet, clad in wool hiking socks, were cold. We admitted they were a little cold; he said is bare feet were not, and we all laughed.

After touring the upstairs part of the monastery, it had started to rain and then snow quite hard. The monk invited us into the dining / common room for a cup of hot tea. Bire had not brought his rain jacket, and the monk who gave us a tour offered a large blue garbage bag for the walk back to the village which we all laughed about. The monk sat and looked through his phone for a while. Even monks do that!

Back at our lodge we had dinner and spoke to the other guests: German, Israeli, more Germans. Bire brought out some raksi, a local brew which reminded us of sake. We sipped a little, but found it very strong. The lodge owners mother refueled the stove with yak dung, and all of us near the stove pulled our tea or raksi glasses out of the way as a few dung crumbs spilled about.