From Pooh to Nako

Since a while the people as kind of pushing me. ‚You have to go to…. it’s only 30 km…. or …. 25km/38km. … as if they want to tell me ‚hurry up, later there are areas coming, where you have to stay longer, if you don’t go now,  you will not have enough time later on…‘

Sutlej river (one of the longest Himalayan rivers – which flows through Parkistan in the ocean) which I followed some 100 km,  springs at the Everest, comes here from China/Tibet into India and meets the Spiti river. Sutlej brings muddy water from 10km China, maybe some big construction going on or mining on the Tibet side. The Spiti river is glacier water clear. I sit for an hour at there melting point. Powerful.

In this area a climate change. From now on it is more desert mountain climate. Vegetation now only by irrigation. The mountains are totality free from vegetation, only some little species grow here. The snow fall border lays higher. The area all together is relatively a bit warmer.

Internet is not working anymore, much earlier then I thought. I thought I will have internet all May…. Thre are only two towns coming, where there is internet through WiFi. (One is Kaza, capital of Spiti Valley, where I will get this texts in he blog the next days)

At the street loops, going up or down, I always look for the short cuts. Shortly before Nako I see a apple plantation at a steep mountain , which must lead to the village. But this time I am wrong. Being ‚on the way‘ I don’t want to go back down and have to search for a possibility to get through this steep plantation. The apple trees are flowering.

After another short cut I reach the Nako Gompa. The monastery has lots of buildings. First I meet Sempa Dorje, a ‚free‘ monk, who does not live a monastery life and teaches at the school here. Later he introduces me to Lama Tashi, which is responsible here. Lama Tashi, at least a head shorter than me, shows me around, first in the old monastery, which old wall paintings and a lot of statues,  which all need urgently some restaurations… here is another building, where the kitchen is situated, a third, which is an abandoned monks building, but Lama Tashi is the only one here…. The forth building is a new temple, where Sempa Dorje circles around clockwise at sunset with his mantra…. locked….. and the fifth building is a big guest house…  where only monks have the allowness to stay…. Both monks discuss a while, what they could do with me…. finally, because Nako is a becoming tourist destination, surrounded by such a beautiful mountain scenery, with a lake and lots of terrace fields, waiting to be watered…. I have to stay in one of the hotels for a cheap price. I will stay three night. Because of my special food needs, Sempa invites me for every morning to cook at his room.

One sunset I went with Sempa to a prayer wheel a little bit more up from the village in a outstanding rock overviewing the village…. Here I explained him about some buildings, a peace stupas, a gathering light temple and a vipassana center and proparbly 2 more buildings, etc…. I want to build, when I am back in Germany. … where the money should come from…. ???

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