Zanskari hopsitality

Just back from Zanskar teachings. Very intimate, very special. The trip there was full of interesting twists and turns literally. After leaving Leh I went to Lechir and Alchi with Melanie a friend of Ani Palzes. We left Leh by bus and hiked up the lechir valley to the gonpa, where the monk were doing puja, and back to our guest house where I had the living room due to all the guests rooms being full. But I had the best view. Waking every morning to the sun shining on the mountains and the ama ley taking the cow for a walk or baking bread in metal bowls on coals. In the morning we walked down to the main road to catch a ride on to alchi. The gonpa here is quite old and the paintings quite wonderful but all the monks live at Licher except two who oversee the tourists. Here my room looked out at the donkey pens and anyone who knows donkeys will know I was "teased", as my host called it, in the early morning by their braying. Just as well as I had decided to try to catch a ride on to Mulbeck. After a guy on his way to work and a bus to lama yuru, where I was prepared to spend the night, I found a ride with a couple from a town near Eureka. And in Mulbeck I met a couple of teachers from Pasadena it seems that most of the Americans I'm meeting in Ladakh are from Ca. This trend continued through the Zanskar teachings as I met a couple from Palo Alto who know Rinpoche from his talks at Stanford. So from Mulbeck I got the bus to Kargyl and then a minivan from there to Rangdom where I spent the night and is the half way point into Zanskar and Padum. I was warned about how bad this road was and was expecting the road to be on hanging cliffs but ultimately what was bad about it was that it was an alpine dirt road for250 km which meant fording streams and trying to keep my head from bouncing off the roof. The next morning I hiked out to the Rangdom gonpa which is on a hill in the middle of a plain that looks like it might be a flood plain in the spring from water run off. From there I walked a couple of hours before a bus of pilgrims stopped to pick me up for the rest of the journey with one stop at Sani gonpa and its stupa with ancient buddhist menhirs in front of it.
Arriving at the teaching location I quickly realized that trying to procure space in one of the tents was going to be too much of a challenge with my limmitted zanskari so I hitched a ride up the hill with one rinpoche to look at the kampas I noticed on the way in that looked like potential home stays. Piling out of the car I met MJ from Korea and she agreed to help me find a place. The first house we stopped at she happened to know the Apa ley and he agreed to let me stay with their family even though he was expecting many relatives to arrive. This turned out to be the most integrated experience I've had in India with any family. Once the relatives arrived the women were relagated to one room where we slept all in a row with the children and the men to another and the overflow men in the unfinished room without a roof which was also hay storage for the cows. In this household I carried my own water from the well down the street for a bath and even helped bring more when it was getting low later in the week. The govt. provides drinking water to a well with a handpump which is fresh and clean which also winds up getting used for washing cloths when the irrigation ditches are dry. The morning walk to the Potang was through the barley and pea fields which rustled in the morning breezes and alive with the hum of pilgrims in their local costumes weighed down with turquoise and coral chanting their morning prayers. The first day I was surprised to find that the teaching was only in the morning but later realized that at this altitude that's enough and it also allowed the locals to get some work done. Though in my family it was mostly preparing food for relatives and not bringing in the harvest.
Nomo works very hard and the two kids are 6 and 10. Phunsok the 10 y.o. boy is in the private school and shy and Tenzin Wangzom is completely on fire and may become the first female Zanskari comedienne if it's not trained out of her by her teens. In the end it was hard to leave this little family and I can only hope that in the future I will have the chance to see them again. But I had found a ride directly to Leh so I was bound to take it and today happy about it as the teaching here has started a day earlier. I was able to visit Kalsa gonpa in Zanskar and the ani gonpa across from it as well with an Italian stupa rebuilding project (who by the way are looking for experienced western stupa builders). An Australian couple and I walked across the desert for 2 hrs to get to Kalsha so I made sure to get us a ride back which took us over to the ani gompa as they were researching which stupa to rebuild...it was a good side trip as the ani gonpa was quite special with an amazing carved Avolakiteshwara and a vajrayogini temple. The ride back to Kargyl was quite intense as we did it in one stretch about 13 hrs. This time Kargyl wasn't as intimidating and I found the locals to be friendly, helpful and generously inviting me to stay for a few days and be shown around the village. But Leh was calling and so here I am...with thousands more people than Zanskar but still a special feeling in the air to have the opportunity to recieve such beneficial teachings. Though many western tourists seem to have come just for a look, who knows what that seed will produce in the future. And on that note May all beings know happiness and the causes of happiness and may I be a benefactor for countless beings to know true freedom.