Monasteries

What fun to write again! This is the Hemis Monastery, the first one to which we went. It has a very large sponsorship from all over the world.

How does a large sponsorship translate into what we observed? Construction and reconstruction. We observed more building here than in others we saw, both in the temple and in monks houses around the compound. In the photo below (from the internet, and the same building as the one in the first photo), the section behind the tall blue flag and pole was missing when we were there. You can see that it's missing in the first photo. The roofline in the first photo is not continuous - which indicates the break from the damage.

Rooftop decoration and an homage to our friend the painter Chris Martin.

Adobe, rock and timber walls. This photo was taken from one of the roofs of the main section, above a prayer hall. I picked up an adobe that was smaller than a CMU and just as heavy. Quite dense stuff.

Ladakh has famously little rain. However, it has been increasing in recent years. It rained for 7 days straight just before we arrived! The day we were in Hemis is the last day that we experienced rain on the trip. The affect on traditional construction has been devastating to some buildings, villages and monasteries, as seen in these photos.

Later - when we trekked west from Lakir we camped in the village of Yang Thang. The village had been swept through by the very high waters of glacial runoff – high water everywhere. Wiped out the roads along the streams, as well as most of the villages. To walk along the stream was very difficult for me on foot, and impossible for the horses. The monastery had been severely damaged as well as much of the village.

Delilah takes off her shoes before entering the prayer hall.

I became intrigued by this decorative lintel and eaves detail which I saw in many places.

What is the purpose? My best guess is something to do with waterproofing the tops of the walls and windows or doors, somehow wicking, or directing water towards the exterior of the buildings.

The builders notch the sticks, gather little bundles of sticks about the size of a bunch of asparagus, dip the ends in red paint, and lay them in place. As I watched this construction site some of the women pointed and laughed at my hair, then still in cornrows. They touched it. They seemed to say "Lay! Lay!" with such delight. It was the first time I heard "Julay!" the friendly greeting.

MIles and Delilah walking among the monks' residences above the prayer halls. I had a hard time imagining monks navigating the paths at 4,5,6 in the morn in the dark.

Even a photograph of Buddha is sacred. No flashes please!

Offerings of many colors from interior of Stoknya. The prayer halls are quite dark. One's eyes must adjust. In Hemis, light comes from above, second story clerestories, or a little private skylight directly over the special chair for the lama. I could not access the second stories. As in Stoknya, the light was also indirect. Diffuse. Thiksney was the darkest of all. Prayer halls had many rooms off main room, akin to Christian chapels. Not symmetrical, with many more buddhas. Not just one special room with chapels, but several special rooms. (More like the Met!) Floors were well worn with wide baords, which felt good, varied and polished under sock feet.

MIles in the courtyard of Stoknya Monastery. Much more intimate than Hemis. Hemis was backed up into a mountain in a glacial valley. Upon descent onto the Indus Plain one can see Stoknya in the distance, Stoknya looks like an island in the plain, a fortified island. Some of the walls are crenellated. I was reminded of how Peter Young described "cloud forests" around Bisbee, AZ, that each had their own ecology. From Stoknya looking west one can see Thiksney, which is built where a spur of some foothills meets the flat Indus Plain.

From each monastery one can see the next in the distance. Each of those three has a unique relationship in how it is sited with the mountains.

In the land below Hemis we saw low, broad, dry mortar handmade walls that followed the contours of the landscape. Perhaps they were 3-4' high, and as wide as 12-16'. Carefully stacked flat rocks carved withthe Tibetan words reading Om mani padme hum. Some Tibetans say this to themselves hundreds of times a day to invoke blessings. We would later see very large such carvings into hard-to-reach cliff rocks on our trek.
An unusual flower design.