The Weekend

 Saturday June 23, 3012

It抯 finally the weekend here. There are classes in the morning on Saturdays, but in the afternoon everyone is free. It was pretty warm, aside from an afternoon thunderstorm, so Gonbotashi, his brother, wife, baby, and I went to the Yellow River for a picnic.

 

  We stopped in his hometown, about 5 miles from the monastery where there抯 a long wall made of stacked stones.

 Each stone has been carved with Buddhist text, and the oldest part is around 1000 years old. The newer round stones have been carved with a machine, but the older ones were all hand-carved and have the most text on them. 

 After walking around the wall, we sat by the river side and had some snacks, including spicy chicken feet. I tried one toe, but decided it was 1) too spicy and 2) too chicken-like so I stuck to eating bananas after that.

On our walk they pointed out to me all the plants used in Tibetan medicine, and pretty much everything I found interesting was included. On the way back, we saw Namnang抯 cousin and her friends coming down the mountain. She was holding a snakeskin, apparently also used for medicine and she seemed pretty excited about finding it.