Before leaving Saldang, Kinna arranged for Tundup to open the monastery. As the local amchi, Tundup has the rights of a lama, and he may actually be the one taking care of the gompa in the winter.The gompa was new and some of the artwork remained to be finished. The painting seemed very high quality, as Saldang probably has access to the best artists of the area.
Attached to the gompa was the district medical center, which Tundup also runs. The medicines were almost all Tibetan except for a few boxes of probably outdated drugs. Tundup also has his own personal stockroom of herbal drugs at his house.
Tundup demonstrated his diagnostic art on about four members of the Italian group, who were also visiting at the same time. He held both wrists of the person for about 20 seconds, feeling the pulse and the energy of the person's body. Based on only that, he said something like "when you get angry, you get a pain between the shoulders." In three of the four cases, the person felt his or her diagnosis was accurate or even insightful.On the way out of town, we stopped at the government-run communication post. Powered by a large solar panel, this satellite transmission facility allowed phone calls at pretty reasonable rates, probably subsidized by the government. Kinna and I talked with Ngima for a few minutes and verified that the passes to Jomsom are open. I briefly considered calling someone in the US, but what was the point of hearing news when it will be another two weeks before we can do anything about it?
The day's hike was long and mostly uneventful. We needed to cover some ground because Do Tarap is about 40 kilometers away and we are scheduled to do that in three days. Most of the hike was easy valley-floor walking, though there were two places where we again needed to climb far above the valley to avoid an obstacle. We passed several monasteries built high up against canyon walls. Several people had set up water-driven grain mills along the river. Just before our camp, we saw a group of at least 20 blue sheep grazing high above us.
Our campsite is right below a local family's house. We were a little cautious because the children were watching us intently as we set up camp, but it seems to have been inquisitiveness and not an intention to steal. There are still relatively few groups that pass through this restricted area, so we have to accept being stared at.
