Tibet: Night at the Nunnery

The guest house at the end of the road was sounding awfully appealing. Though our several-hour drive had been wonderful, the weather was turning foul and some of us were feeling the thousand meters of altitude gain since Lhasa.

All day the sights and sounds felt like Tibet—or at least the Tibet that lives in our imaginations. Ganden Monastery, celebrating its 600th anniversary this year, bustled. Monks in every one of the dozens of rooms we passed through were sewing, carving, chanting, practicing the long horns. Villages along the way featured houses that all faced the same direction, backs to the wind. Tea shops sold yak butter tea by the grimy thermos-full. Nomads, wool spinners, herders, pipe smokers, apron wearers—everyone seemed to come straight out of a coffee table book.

Yet we were ready for a rest. It was becoming dark, cold, and wet. The allure of monasteries had faded at the last one, which is famous throughout the country for the practice of “sky burials.” In this tradition, corpses are left on long flat rocks for vultures to dispose of. As we drove up a narrow canyon toward the Tidrum Nunnery, everyone’s thoughts turned toward a good night’s sleep.

Prayer flags greeted us at the end of the road. These colorful cloths, which are thought to promote peace and compassion as their mantras are blown by the wind, stretched far up the canyon and out of sight. From below came the calming sound of a rapid river. “I’ll go check to see what kinds of rooms are left,” said our guide.

The travel agency hadn’t provided much detail about the accommodation. If it had, the description might have sounded like this: “a glimpse of the way most of the world spends the night.” In other words, the beds were basic and public. Though we were off the ground and covered by blankets, I knew that my traveling companions had been hoping for something a little bit less like camping. They definitely hadn’t counted on sharing their unheated lodging with countless Tibetan pilgrims.

The way to make the best of the situation was to remind myself that we’d spent the day enjoying the “real” Tibet, and that this guest house was an extension of that. Dressed in everything I had brought along, and carrying a toothbrush and towel, I headed down a set of slippery stone steps in search of the communal bathroom. What I found was a long open trench covered by a corrugated tin roof. As I brushed my teeth, grateful for the scent of the toothpaste, a pilgrim walked in wearing only a robe and rubber sandals. He nodded at me and straddled the trench. From his hindquarters soon came volcano noises.

I left him to his business. On the way out I noticed other men walking around in just robes and sandals. It seemed an unlikely coincidence that so many of the nunnery’s guests would be both male and out for an evening stroll in the midst of a drizzle. Following them led to my discovery of the antidote for what otherwise could have been a long night. Tidrum Nunnery was home to a hot spring.

And not just any hot spring. These pools were world class. Gently carbonated, just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, open to the stars—they don’t get much better than that. Joining eight or ten naked, intoning pilgrims, my attitude about the guest house quickly shifted. What at first seemed like a hardship post was in fact heaven.

My springmates stopped chanting long enough to warn me away from the patch of nettles growing along one edge of the pool. One part of me knew I shouldn’t stay too long, but another part was loving it enough to consider settling in until I simply moved on to my next life and could let my body be taken down the road for a proper sky burial.

After about fifteen minutes I looked up at the lone decoration, a framed photograph of a monk. Someone tried explaining the significance of the picture. Or perhaps he was telling me that my formerly white skin was looking lobster-like. I chose to see the one-way conversation as a sign that it was time to go. My sleep wasn’t half bad.

At around 4am I was still blissed out enough not to mind when the pilgrims in the next room got up and loudly ate breakfast. At 5:30, when they came back from their first trip to the pools that day, I got up and took another turn myself. It’s hard to imagine a better way to start, or end, a day.

That guest house will stay in our memories a long time, though each of us will tell a very different story about it. Shortly after sunrise we left it behind. The wide valley of the Drigung Chu River led us back toward Lhasa. Our car slowed for goats in the road. We stopped to take pictures of the yak on the mountainsides, and of their dung, piled high on the village walls in the shape of large cookies, waiting to be burned for fuel.