Wow! A great night’s sleep and the grace of a later start time today. Great breakfast buffet and we meed the group in the beautiful courtyard at 9. We are off to the Puji monastery. We are dropped off at the beginning of a path, and it’s a lovely 30-minute hike up the mountain through the forest. As we near the top, we have a terrific view over the whole valley:
and soon prayer flags appear everywhere – running vertically along trees as well as horizontally between. We pop out into an open space, and there is the courtyard filled with more, and a beautiful little Temple.
Beautifully painted everywhere, we really soak in the quiet and peace. The front door is painted with a sign that we begin to recognize, the wish for long life:
and an intricate sculpture for burning incense, with lovely bells hanging everywhere:
We learn of the Temple’s long history, and a particularly compelling story about how the wife of a visiting government official took very ill, and visited the monastery at the suggestion of local officials. Of course she recovered right away, and when the capital heard about this, they gave a generous stipend to the monks. They decided to put on a new copper roof, to eliminate the need for replacing clay tiles every 5 years and thereby leaving more time for prayer. But with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolution, they had to bury the copper roof tiles so the party committee wouldn’t come and confiscate such valuable materials. The last time they were buried for 15 years, but are now safely ensconced back where they belong. Crazy political pop theories.
The Temple was small, but the painted ceiling lovely and shrine lovingly and colorfully decorated (no pictures allowed). I say and meditated for about 10 minutes, and then rejoined the group to sit with one of the monks and have a (translated) conversation with him. Then back down the hill and into the Baisha village, and ethnic minority with one of the 3 oldest villages in the whole area. Incredibly yummy, this one, and lots and lots of vegetables (but luckily eggplant and mushrooms remain staples). After lunch we visit the former home of Joseph Rock, a botanist who came to this area in 1922 for Harvard University, but loved the local people so much he stayed to study them and was fully financed by the University. Huang, our local guide, is a fount of information and probably our best guide yet:
Ended up writing and taking pictures for National Geographic as well.
Back in town, we take a couple of hours to shop. Subsequent to my quizzing our local guide, Huang, we learned that craftsmen in this town would be keeping sales proceeds, as opposed to some of the more generalist “antique” stores, who sent a lot of their profits back to Bejing, from where everything was shipped. Huang walked us up to a local embroidery shop, and the family of women worked daily on incredibly intricate pictures, which they framed for sale. Huang told us that amongst the Naxi people (pronounced Nashi), the women do all of the work. This evolved from a time when the men had to be prepared to go to war at all times, so the women were left home to run the household, the farms, etc. Here’s what I mean:
These days, not so much warring to be done, so the men play maj, serve as house husbands, or find something fun to do. The women are still doing the bulk of the work – from planting crops, or harvesting, to toting said crops to the market in bamboo baskets on their backs. Moral of the story: be sure your role definitions are built to evolve with time (or be redefined every 10 years).
Anyway, I find a piece that is so lovely, and bargain with the woman who runs the operation for the family (as well as embroidering herself, which she did on the piece I selected). I was satisfied with the bargaining, and then she thanked me for admiring the piece and for helping them, because this is how they earned their living and it was only the women doing the work. I replied (and all of this back and forth was through our guide) that I would be happy to pay the previous price that she had countered with, as opposed to the final one she agreed to, because I wanted to support my sisters in China. She was very touched and this started quite a bit of back and forth, ending with much warmth and a big hug.
Next, we rode back into town and rented bicycles – and yes, I was back on a tandem – and we rode for about an hour through the countryside. A very popular route, but scenic nonetheless with other cyclists, old battered trucks and the scarily silent electric scooters that seemed to be everywhere. A delightful day out and we have fun yelling out hello (in Chinese) to everyone who passes and see their big smiles when we do.
Back to the hotel for a rest (although no rest for bloggers!) and a 6:30 pick-up for our dinner in a local home. A pit stop in the grocery to get a traditional “hostess” gift (a local liqueur and bag of nice quality tea, but we get two of each because even numbers are lucky) and off we go. Into a beautiful courtyard, and we admire their garden, which is planted nicely, and surrounded by a walnut tree, persimmon tree, pear, peach and cherry trees. Makes me long for Montana being fully finished! Lance hands over the traditional hostess gift from all of us:
and of course, hearing the oil hit the pan, I scurried into the kitchen for an action shot:
We then sit and enjoy maybe the best meal yet – fresh out of the frying pan (which is being wo-manned by the matriarch’s daughter-in law with her supervising) and not as oily as in many of the restaurants we’ve visited.
We really enjoy ourselves, and the rest of the group returns by bus to the hotel and we walk back into town to walk and enjoy a bit of the nightlife we stumbled past the night before. After about an hour, we head back to pack and be ready to ship out again in the morning.