If your guide doesn’t know how to get to Mount
Hepori, just ask. People will direct you the right way. Or you can just, you
know, look up and try to angle your way towards it. Mount Hepori is a famous
pilgrimage site. This is the most famous place that Padmasambhava subjected all
of the gods and demons of Tibet. This area just becomes more and more Mortal
Kombat-esque. I was told that a few years ago, practitioner and tourist alike
had to scramble up the sides of this very dusty and pebbly mountain and then
slide the way down. While there was a sort of trail worn in by the sheer amount
of people who have gone, it was by no means very secure. To the surprise of the
Boy, who had been here twice before, this time there were stairs!
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| See that mountain there? That's Hepori! |
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| Here's the entrance to the path that leads you up! |
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| Poor cow =( |
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| Stairs and sign, in case you had any doubts |
Up until the point, I hadn’t really been feeling
the altitude. It felt much worse in January with the cold, but really wasn’t
bad this time around. The climb definitely changed this. I was panting and
gasping my way up. Add to the fact that this was the most physical exertion I
had felt in a while, it was slow going. I would say that I couldn’t even imagine
how difficult it was without stairs except for the fact that the stairs stopped
halfway there… I masked my need for stops by making excuses to take pictures
frequently. Hence the 900+ photos I came back with. To add insult to injury,
there were a couple of Tibetans steaming ahead of me and they were not using
the stairs. Our guide was puffing along with us, but this didn’t even assuage
my feeling of incompetence since he is a few years older than me and a bit more
rotund… But, this hike is well worth doing, in spite of any physical
inconvenience it may cause.
It is a spectacular view on all sides. Going up,
you have the streams of colorful prayer flags motivating you. They crisscross
and flutter beautifully in the breeze and make you long to be among them. When
you reach that level, it feels like you are completely surrounded in color.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Right below this level is where the stairs
stopped. Once you reach the top if this stage in the climb, there is a platform
where you can take some pictures. Be careful if you decide to take any jumping
ones. You won’t fall far before you are stopped by prayer flags, but it still
wouldn’t be pleasant. Also, as you climb, you will be able to see Samye
Monastery the whole time. It’s a great feeling to see it get smaller and
smaller.
From this point, you get your first views of the
other side.
Heading up from here is fairly straightforward.
Mind your footing, it gets a little steep but then evens out a bit more as you
reach the summit.
It took us about 40 minutes to an hour to get to
the top. There is a small chapel there, very quaint and a sharp contrast to how
huge Samye Monastery is. Again, if you decide to take jumping pictures, watch
out for the drop. It won’t be far before you are stopped by something but it
would hurt. We actually ran into another group of Australian tourists heading
down as we were heading up (in fact, we had been seeing them all day and they
were always one step ahead of us!). Even though you can choose to go down the
other side of the mountain and do a full circumambulation, it seems the common
tourist route is to just head right back the way you came. When we suggested
going the full way around to our guide, he didn’t seem the most thrilled and we
eventually gave into his way of thinking. Apparently the other side is much
steeper and I guess doesn’t have even partial stairs.
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| The other side! |
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| The little temple |
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| Samye! |
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| See, even if you fell, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would sting... |
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| Yes, I like pictures of the sun through prayer flags |
By the time we made it back down, it was close to
seven. The entire trek took a total of about two hours. It was slower going the
way down because even though it wasn’t as tiring, we had to watch out for our
footing a lot more. There is actually another set of stairs leading down from
that middle platform, so if you wanted an alternate route, there you go. We saw
some people working on building the stairs there so tourists in the future will
likely have them the full way up.
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| This is the other way down. Takes you to what I think will be a parking lot |
In the first post
Dorje Drak and the Drive to Samye Monastery, I mentioned how
much I was dreading spending the night in the hotel in the monastery. During
lunch the guide and driver had suggested we go to Tsetang, a city an hour away,
to spend the night. Then they went back on this idea, saying it would be more
costly and time consuming. More than us, they appeared to not want to
experience this hotel and suffer any sort of inconvenience. All this while, I
had been mulling over the merits of staying the night. I had seen as much as I
really needed to see of Samye barring the green stupa and I could always do
that another time. With Samye only two hours to three hours away, it has become
a very manageable day trip. I kept asking the Boy (hinting really) whether or
not we needed to stay and what he wanted. All he needed was a book on the
history of Samye. After I finally told
him that it might not be the end of the world to head back to Lhasa that day,
he jumped on board, provided he got the book.
Since it was nearing 7:00 p.m. we hurried to the
gates of the compound and he dashed in to see if the book store was still open.
Ten minutes later, he returned, book in hand! We then told our guide and the
driver that we were okay with leaving that night. They were ecstatic and said
it was the best idea we had had all day. So, after a pretty quick dinner, we
were on our way.
Apparently there are two ways to get to Samye
from Lhasa. One that goes past Dorje Drak with rougher roads and one that
doesn’t with smoother roads. We were expecting to go the smooth route but
instead our driver took us back past Dorje Drak. I wonder how much this had to
do with a joke the Boy made about going to Dorje Drak…This trip ended up being
a full three hours since it was dark and the driver had to be more careful.
Thus concludes the epic three posts on Dorje
Drak, Samye Monastery, and Mount Hepori!
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