Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 1

For over 35 years, ever since I happened to trek vast parts of Arunachal Pradesh in 1975 and subsequently trekked parts of Kumaon Himalaya, I had heard of the Lake Manasarovar -  a large turquoise and emerald coloured body of freshwater occurring at dizzy heights of roughly 15,000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau, and I had nursed a dream of being able to visit the place. Back then, the Chinese were still wary of granting permission to outsiders to visit these places. Perhaps it was only in the early 1980s that Indian pilgrims were granted visas in limited numbers to visit Lake Manasarovar and circumambulate Mount Kailash. I myself had dreamt of making a trip through the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, but had refrained from taking active steps in this direction as I was not too confident of my physical abilities for the arduous journey.

During the past ten years I had constantly heard of private tour operators from Nepal who offer an opportunity for the trip in a much easier way from Katmandu and traversing through extensive tracts of the Tibetan plateau in motorized vehicles to reach Manasarovar and Mount Kailash and I was always keen on exploring the possibility. It so happened that my spiritual quests led me to an intimate association with the Isha Foundation, Coimbatore and when I heard that this Organisation also offers a trip to Kailash and Manasarovar, I felt doubly blessed. I immediately picked up the strings to explore the possibility of making the Mt. Kailash – Manasarovar Sojourn and felt happy that I had done their Inner Engineering Course on my own volition and interest, which in fact they lay down as a statutory stipulation before they enroll you as a member on the Kailash trip. One thing led to another, and I found myself as a part of the B4 group of the Isha sojourn to Kailash – Manasarovar for the year 2010 after having been found medically suitable to make the trip on their examination of my medical reports.  I left Bangalore for Delhi on the 19^th of August by rail, and on reaching Delhi on the 21^st, immediately boarded a flight to Katmandu, Nepal.



A bus transported the group from the airport to a fairly comfortable three star hotel called ‘Hotel Shanker’. I was allotted a twin-sharing room with a fellow traveler from Bangalore, Mr. Balamurugan. The room though comfortable and spacious was unfortunately a split-level room with a steeply descending stairway to the beds and the bathroom.  This aspect made it a little uncomfortable, but we were amply compensated by the excellent service and the tasty food that was served.  

Right: Split-level room - a rather inconvenient arrangement. The entrance is seen on the top.

The hotel has a neat garden with lush lawns and flowering plants and on the whole we were quite pleased with the arrangements. A swimming pool that was on the premises was very enticing, but prudence prevailed over adventure as none of us risked catching a cold before our main trip to Tibet was to begin.

The bell-boys, butlers and staff were very courteous and on the whole we had a very comfortable two-day stay.

During our stay at Katmandu the organisers had arranged for a visit to the Pasupathinath temple. The Nepali guides try to entice you to offer expensive 'sevas' and poojas by misleadingly telling you that it would guarantee a speedy darshan, but if you approach the guards at the doors and tell them that you just need a darshan, they let you in for a quick view of the deity and subsequent hasty exit. The Pashpathinath Temple has four doors in the four directions and likewise the shiva linga has four faces - the eastern door is known as Tatpurusha, the one facing south is known as Aghora, and the ones facing west and north are known as Sadyojatha and Vamadeva respectively. The present temple is supposed to be roughly 400 years old, though the locale of the temple has been an active religious and spiritual centre for several hundreds of years.

  We later visited the Stupa at Boudhnath which has 13 steps and a lotus shaped structureon the top. At the very top of the Stupa there is supposed to be a chimney-like conduit, down which kings and royals are supposed to have cast down precious jewels and money.   As a consequence, these stupas are supposed to contain a lot of wealth within them. At the outer periphery of the stupa are fixed several cylindrical wheels with Buddhist prayers engraved on them, which devotees set in rotatory motion as they repeatedly circumambulate the stupa.

  The Boudhnath Stupa is surrounded by several shops marketing antiques, art, music CDs and clothes. A small Tibetan Buddhist monastery also is seen where Tibetan monks were chanting sacred mantras. We also visited an art gallery where artisans were painting very intricate paintings on specially treated canvasses made from cotton and wax and rubbed with a polished rock and using carefully selected vegetable and mineral dyes. These paintings, called 'Thanka Paintings'  largely depict stories from the life of Buddha and include elaborate detail and are very skillfully executed.(See below)

Later in the afternoon we visited the Dakshin Kali temple about 50 to 60 km from Katmandu. The guide plodded us to do some steep climbing of steps as a preparation of what was to come further in the trip. These were the activities of August 22nd 2010.

 

                        Right : Dakshin Kali Temple