Before leaving Shey Gompa, we had a chance to go inside the town monastery. It is fairly typical of a small Tibetan gompa, with statues of different Buddha manifestations in sconces at the front, paintings on the wall, and benches and mats where monks can sit chanting and beating drums and chimes. A wide seat for the high lama was occupied in absentia by his photograph, along with a photo of his previous incarnation. The current lama is 17 years old and still completing his religious training.The trail out of town was a gradual but continuous climb towards another pass, Shey La. We were able to stop for a hot lunch cooked by our staff, after which the climb became more challenging. Marcia did fine as soon as she sorted out the competition for blood between her lunch and her legs. But I fell behind as I seemed still not fully acclimatized to the elevation at the top of the wide pass, 5150 meters.
But oh the view when we got there! Below us to the north was all of northern Dolpo, where we will be spending the next five days. Valley after valley had changing colors somewhat like Arizona. In the distance were the rugged mountains on the Tibetan border. I was particularly captivated by a mountain that looked like a split Matterhorn, only steeper. I remembered seeing the same striking mountain from the north in 1996 when Marcia and I traveled across Tibet. So the other side of that range must be the high rolling desert of the Yarlung Tsampo valley.
We descended slope after slope to Namgung, where we're spending the night. Namgung is another monastery town, with the old monastery built into the side of a cliff. In this case the old monastery was abandoned 17 years ago when the brightly painted new one was built on the valley floor. Sheaves of barley lay on the ground nearby waiting to be threshed into the local dried mash tsampa.
