Dorje Drak and the Drive to Samye Monastery

Recently I went to Samye Monastery. I was supposed to stay a night and since I had heard not the most pleasant things about the drive/hotel, I braced myself for the worst. The boy had been there three times before and each time the drive was around five to six hours on a paint-shaking road. After arriving, the hotel inside the monastery (yes, it's really inside the compound) was not the most comfortable place to rest. It was a sweltering room mostly inhabited by bugs who didn't mind the rock hard bed. The communal bathroom was a hole in the concrete floor with three feet high walls and no doors. It's amazing how hard some people find it to aim. Armed with this knowledge, I was not the most thrilled by the prospect of staying the night.

While our guide this time assured us that there was a new road that would only take two to three hours, both of us remained unconvinced... The first part of the drive was quite pleasant, nicely paved and all. Then we took an alternate route so we could swing by dorje drak monastery first. This road set our teeth a-clacking. The view was pretty spectacular though. There were a ton of sand dunes and many dramatic mountains rising on either side. Along the way, we kept seeing people planting what looked to be sticks in the dunes. They formed a criss-cross pattern and if anyone reading this knows what they were doing, do tell!

Random yak

The dune o' sand

I can't figure it out

So intriguing! My guess is that they're trying to plant

Dorje drak means adamantine cliff (the boy's translation) and it is actually a monastery located on a cliff (surprise!). It was destroyed in the past and while it has been rebuilt, it is literally half the size it used to be. It is famous for something to do with lineage holders. What I took away from it was that there's a really neat rock that is supposedly imprinted with the head of one of these lineage holders. If this is true, then the head was not only enormous but very bumpy. I wasn't able to take a picture since the young monk who was with us was watching me like a hawk. But, I did manage to get some photos of the beautiful murals that adorn the walls. These murals depict important protector deities and tantric deities (yes, some of them were in compromising positions).

Construction outside the gate

These are SO cool and effective. The pot was actually boiling

Courtyard

Snuck the picture

Murals

Told ya! Sorry it's blurry, it was dark in there and I didn't have a tripod.

More murals

View from the top

You can see the ruins up there

After spending about an hour and a half, (most travelers need only spend an hour at most, but I'm traveling with a PhD researcher) we continued on our way to Samye. True to what was promised, we did indeed arrive right around the three hour mark, not counting our detour to Dorje Drak. There are actually some surprisingly good restaurants outside of the monastery entrance gate. We went to one that had the original name "Tibetan Food". I think it might have also had something about friendship in its name. The reason I say that it was surprisingly good is that A. the yak momos were fantastic and B. I didn't get sick from eating cold cucumbers!

*Travelers tip, it is a courtesy to treat your guide and driver to food.

Something very interesting happened during our meal. While we were eating, a Tibetan woman came in who clearly had mental issues. Something the boy didn't notice as he complimented her on the food, thinking that she was a part of the restaurant staff. She stood staring at us and then starting laughing in this uncontrollable high pitched, raucous manner. The actual staff then gently pulled her away and pushed her down onto a bench to the right of us. Then they signed to her that she couldn't behave like that. After this, they served her tea and lit her a cigarette. This was probably the most understanding I've seen people act towards those with disabilities.


Having finished lunch and fended off the flirtatious advances of the local staff toward the boy (once they learned he could speak Tibetan, they got real interested real fast), we finally headed to Samye.

I'll stop here for now since this is a surprisingly long post! Read on about Samye Monastery.

Outside the gates of Samye

More of the solar heaters!