Greetings faithful readers! I've just awoken to inform you of the fantastic afternoon and night I had yesterday. After my adventures inside Bodnath Stupa, I experienced the famously vibrant area of culture around it first-hand! After I had taken the traditional clockwise walk around Bodnath, I decided to view the various shops around the area. Although many were overpriced and purely targeting tourists, there were countless stores and stalls selling all manner of genuine and traditional hand made goods. In the end I decided to use my limited spending money to buy a traditional Tibetan singing bowl from Himalayan Singing Bowl Centre. This purchase did cost a fair sum of money but it was worth it for the beautiful chime of the bowl. After this trip around the shops, I went on tours of various monasteries in the area (the Dilyak Monastery, Kopan Monastery Shechen Monastery, Thrangu Monastery). The highlight of my monastery tours was the Thrangu Monastery (formally called the Thrangu Tashi Yangtse Monastery). This was the only tour that lasted more than a few minutes and it revealed all manner of monks learning each-others jobs and participating in intellectual activities. Many of the monks are under 18 and lots of them are from rural areas of Nepal. While here, one of the monks shared with me the incredible story behind Bodnath Stupa. The legend is a bit lengthy to put in this blog but it does involve the Perfect Buddha laying down his own body to help a tigress with her young. After the cultural tour, I went to eat in the Stupa View Restaurant, which offered a great view of the stupa (duh) as well as serving great vegetarian food. It was very expensive though.

I will spend the rest of this morning and afternoon preparing for the main event of my trip: a scenic trek to the Gokyo Lakes. Although it isn’t linked with any Buddhist pilgrimage, this is still quite a well know hike for viewing the unspoiled landscape of the Himalayas. I won’t have internet while on the trek but I will be taking notes of what happens and upload them afterwards.
Bodnath Stupa side temple interior.