{"id":934,"date":"2012-10-05T11:54:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T11:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2012-10-07T08:18:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T08:18:59","slug":"solu-khombu-trek-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/?p=934","title":{"rendered":"Solu Khombu Trek &#8211; Day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning we woke up at 5am to be able to sit in on morning meditation with the nuns. \u00a0It was such a wonderful, relaxing experience. \u00a0The hum of their prayers reverberating through the brightly frescoed walls depicting peaceful and wrathful gods. \u00a0The nuns line up sitting crossed legged and sometimes stop to drink tea, or have a snack. \u00a0There are intermittent pauses in the chorus, and then they will all start up again, almost all at once. \u00a0There were occasional breaks where there would be playing of instruments like horns, cymbals, and drums, then back to the humming of prayer. \u00a0It felt very human. \u00a0Though they are a group of nuns, and a few monks here and there, it was a serious business, but not too serious for being friendly or human. \u00a0When someone would walk up to take their place, smiles and sometimes a brief conversation would ensue.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2488.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2488.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2488\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morning meditation at Thuptenchholing monastery.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We walked around and took in the sights. \u00a0And the sights are extraordinary. \u00a0The monastery is perched high above a valley with streams and tall pines everywhere. \u00a0There are Tibetan prayer flags strung across valleys of immense distance. \u00a0The monastery is not too old, so the buildings are in quite good condition, and they are beautiful in a beautiful setting. \u00a0We walked through numerous kitchens, all preparing food for the 600 or so nuns. \u00a0That means a lot of potatoes, since those are the staple here. \u00a0They grow a lot of spinach here too. \u00a0It really is a beautiful, magical, peaceful place.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2519.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2519.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2519\" width=\"500\" height=\"557\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dried yak cheese, it&#8217;s just as tasty as it sounds..<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2494.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2494.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2494\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A testament to their patients, nuns peal thousands of potatoes every day.<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2498.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2498.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2498\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Massive wood burning ovens that feed over 600 people 3 meals a day!<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2554.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2554.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2554\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A nun making roti.<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" title=\"Nepal_2586.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2586.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2586\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" border=\"0\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">We had a lot of free time to go on walks and poke around the monastery.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In the late afternoon we met with the herbal medicine doctor to have our pulses read. \u00a0After gripping our wrists for a while, every now and then asking to see our tongues, we learned that Seth is having stomach issues and should lay off the sugar, and that I have hurt my back and should keep it warm. \u00a0Alrighty! I wonder if the pained expressions on my face while stretching my back or the snickers bar wrapper in the trash can had anything to do with our diagnoses?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"Nepal_2425.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nepal_2425.jpg\" alt=\"Nepal 2425\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning we woke up at 5am to be able to sit in on morning meditation with the nuns. \u00a0It was such a wonderful, relaxing experience. \u00a0The hum of their prayers reverberating through the brightly frescoed walls depicting peaceful and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/?p=934\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[202,229,220,246,228],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nepal","tag-nepal-2","tag-nuns","tag-solu-khumbu","tag-thuptenchholing-monastery","tag-thuptencholing-monastery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions\/937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}