The next day, we woke up early and headed off to Neyphug Monastery which was founded in the 1550s. It's not in the list of the usual places that tourists visit but as we later found out, our guide was related to the Rinpoche there thus I guess that's why it was added into our itinerary.
During the long drive to the monastery, our guide told us that the Rinpoche of Neyphug Monastery was her uncle. Apparently her uncle is the 9th reincarnation of Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche, one of the 25 disciples of the Lotus-born Buddha or Guru Padmasambhava, who brought Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan. I found that rather mind-boggling when she told us, I'm not a Buddhist but I do believe in reincarnation and even then when she told us about it I found it honestly quite unbelievable. Unfortunately for us H.E. Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche was in Singapore lecturing while we were there so we didn't manage to see him. We did enter the temple and saw the monks doing their daily chanting.
The monastery is currently undergoing a huge restoration after an earthquake in 2011 thus the buildings were mainly makeshift and there were loads of construction materials lying around. As is the same of temples in Bangkok there were many dogs and cats around the monastery.
hanging out in the cold
One of the monks invited us to stay for tea and biscuits and we found a kitten hiding in the room. The cat was smarter than the dogs for sure cos it was really chilly outside. While the monk went to get tea and biscuits for us, he switched on the television and I was really fascinated by the type of advertisements they have. I saw advertisements for carpenters etc and there was a Bhutan version of American Idol but where they sang traditional songs.
smart kitty who decided to stay warm in the room
After a quick lunch at the hotel, we headed off to Kyichu Lhakhang, which is one of the oldest temples in Bhutan. Unfortunately while we were there, we learnt that the Queen Mother was going to visit the temple thus we could only walk around the temple but not enter it. I did find it unusual that we were allowed to hang around the temple while she visited as I had assumed that all visitors had to leave. In any case we managed to catch a glimpse of her as she entered the temple. Her entourage was rather small for royalty which I found unexpected.
walkway to Kyichu Lhakhang
As we were unable to even visit the museum at Kyichu Lhakhang due to the royal visit, our guide decided to bring us to Jangtsa Dumtseg Lhakhang instead. It is in the form of a stupa which is uncommon in Bhutan. There are three storeys in total but as we visited fairly late and no electricity is allowed in the temple, we only climbed up to the second storey and did not attempt the third storey. It's not exactly on the tourist itineary so we more or less had the place to ourselves. Though we couldn't have a good look at the murals on the walls, it was still a fairly fascinating experience. I've never been in a temple where the only source of light was from oil lamps, while we could use the torchlight function on our phones it was still fairly dark. It was quite an atmospheric experience and I don't think I'll ever experience it again elsewhere. And with that, we ended our second day in Bhutan.
No comments:
Post a Comment