The next day, we met our new Tibetan local guide, Pempa - and our 4-Runner drivers, Tenzin and Pu-pu. Our destination was Dechen (Diqing), China. On the way, we stopped by 2 relatively unvisisted monasteries.
It was interested to see that in the first monastery, one of the temples had a picture of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso! It was my understanding that pictures of the 14th were banned; however, our guide explained that in Yunnan province, pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama are tolerated.
The other monastery we visisted, Tundrup Ling, was set high upon the edge of a cliff on the way to Dechen. The setting was gorgeous. This monastery was clearly rarely visited by westerners, and we got some surprised looks. Actually there weren’t many monks here, apparently they were on holiday (and indeed, we did see some monks in their crimson robes shooting pool the next town up).
On the way to Decen, we climbed over our first 16,000+ foot pass. We could definitely feel the altitude.
The pass, as many others we were to see, was covered in lovely prayer flags. According to Tibetans, if you put the flags at the highest pass you can find, the wind will flutter the flags harder, and the more the flags flutter, the more your prayers will be heard.
Another distinctive feature of Tibet we began to see as we got closer were the many stupas throughout the countryside. They are a symbolic, holy symbol, and Tibetans burn incense in them and pray.
We finally arrived in Dechen, and very small trading and agricultural town in a pretty setting. We relaxed the evening away playing pool - the locals were laughing at how poorly we goofy foreigners were playing!
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