Kyangin Gompa Mountain High

Sabbatical Day #27

4/12/2022

Kyangin Gompa, Langtang National Park, Nepal, 12,750 feet

Well, against seemingly steep odds, we have made it to Kyangin Gompa, our final accommodation destination of our trek. I’m not sure how we somehow made it through the chaotic planning of the trip, the changing covid testing requirements, the covid testing, the health of 4 Ballonoff family members, the loooong hikes in, Asher’s severe case of gastroenteritis, not to mention the 1,000 other things that could have happened to prevent us from getting here. So many times along the way I asked myself why in the world we are putting in so much time and energy into going half way around the world only to go on a hike in the mountains when we can do that walking out the door of Elk Trail. Well, I now know why it was so important for it to happen. This place is truly magical.

Asher somehow rallied through his sickness and was able to get on the trail this morning. We walked the 4 mile, 1700 vertical hike in about 4 hours, taking our time due to the altitude and Asher’s state of recovery. The hike was beautiful, accompanied by yaks and donkeys, slowly revealing more and more gorgeous peaks as we climbed. There were waterfalls falling thousands of feet down from the glaciers above. We passed a large Buddhist temple with a huge prayer wheel inside. There was also the requisite suspension bridge as a bonus. Kyangin Gompa is a quaint village situated in a valley bordered by 20,000-24,000 foot peaks in nearly all directions. It is a holy site for Tibetan Nepali Buddhists and has many temples and shrines scattered about. There are yaks strolling through and around the town. The people are clad in immensely colorful outfits, especially the women.

When I was strolling around the town, I realized that the buildings weren’t organized and spaced normally. While I was racking my brain trying to figure out why, an incredibly obvious thought came to mind—there are no cars! Heck, there are no mechanized vehicles or machines of any kind here! What a strange experience to be in a functional village with no cars buzzing by, no smell of exhaust, no smog whatsoever, and no sound pollution. Once you remove the machines, your senses begin to awaken. All of the sudden I could hear myself think, I could smell the incense coming from the various houses, I could focus on the world around me rather than whether I would get hit by the next car. All of the sudden, I could slow down. While slowing down, I realized that all these people live at a slower speed than I do. How refreshing. Yet, their lives are far from easy. They struggle in very different ways. Their lives are full of hardships, just different ones than ours. I currently have no opinion which is better, but I feel strongly that having the awareness that there are other ways of living is quite important for everyone.

Another surprise magical experience is that it just happens that tonight there is a ceremony in the village to remember someone from the village who died 49 days ago. This Tibetan ceremony happens whenever someone dies and helps their soul go to nirvana. People come from all over the valley, trekking over 20 miles to get here. There are even some family members who are in politics who took a helicopter to the ceremony. The ceremony is attended by ~300-400 people, which is significant considering fewer than the 50-75 people who live in the whole village. The ceremony began on in the monastery on the hill around noon with people kneeling in prayer in one building and, in another, people lighting candles in a beautiful room covered in colorful paintings of the buddha and the mountains with multiple prayer wheels. Kids are outside playing and adults are either participating in the prayers or candle lighting or cooking and serving food and drink to all who are there. We 4 went to the candle lighting room before dinner (we were invited to join) where we were given a pad to sit on the floor with the other people who were watching the candles facing a barrel full of apples and lots of additional food that was brought to help with the celebration. We were all offered tea, and I accepted, it ended up being apple tea which is sort of like apple cider. Needless to say, among the Ballonoff clan who has been deprived of fresh fruit, the apple tea was a hit. We were welcomed into this ceremony for the deceased as one of the family, despite looking just a bit different than the rest of the people.

At 9 pm, the dancing began. Asher crashed to bed, so we took shifts going to the dancing. Linden and Cris went first and were immediately invited to join the dancing and singing (which is actually praying). They returned 30 minutes later and said I had to go as it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Despite really wanting to just curl up and sleep, Linden and I headed up to join the dancing. Whoa, was I thankful I went. Arriving there was like entering a different world in a different time. There was a circle of dancing men and women around the outside of the room with ~150 people sitting in the middle. The circle of dancers was divided into a male half and a female half. People were slowly dancing in a circle around the room, singing and chanting with gusto. It was a chorus as the men had a part and the women had a part and the resultant song/prayer was beautiful. Linden was quickly whisked off into the circle by the owner of the hotel we stayed at in Langtang. She spent ~15 minutes making one revolution with her usual magical charm. Again, I was taken aback by the acceptance of us into this personal ceremony…tall Caucasian Linden in her Marmot jacket, hat and headlamp holding hands and dancing with Tibetan/Nepalese women dressed in bright traditional Tibetan dresses. I was quickly offered Tibetan wine which is a euphemism for Tibetan moonshine made from fermented rice. I didn’t quite finish it…

Observing this ceremony made me realize the strong sense of community this culture has. There are innumerable hardships here, and my impression is that one of the ways they deal with these hardships is to rely on each other and find joy and belonging in their community. This sense of community has been pervasive through our time here. Wherever we go, Dawa greets and talks to most of the people as if they are all long lost friends. At every hotel, he acts as waiter and busser for our food, even tallying up our tabs to figure out how much we (including him) owe the hotel. There is very little sense of “I” and “me”, mostly just a sense of “we” and “us”. Again, this has been a lesson for me as to how things can be different and work well. Life here is brutal in so many ways, yet I really feel I have lots to learn from these people.