More on Da Tong Ma

Eventually, we make it up the mountain in Da Tong Ma for an amazing view of the town.

The place we’re staying in, opposite the monastery has some really cool dogs.

There’s the little pup that always rolls onto his back when I come to play with him.

The rasta that loves to dance.

And the friendliest of all, this big boy that they say will bite you. The pup in the background is a stray, but loves to hang out with big boy.

  This girl, also a stray, along with little pup stays around big boy a lot, he’s very handsome.

We eventually make it to the town’s monastery where one of the monks gladly offers us some tea and cookies. Another monk joins us and the original is on the phone to his friends in no time, asking Elise, Gregor and myself to say a few words to each person he calls.

Left monk is the one that offers us tea and calls his friends, inviting the middle monk, the only one of the trio that speaks Mandarin to translate what Gregor is saying. The monk on the right is the one that joined us while we were drinking tea and took the most photos of us on his camera phone.

Walking around town, we hear the chants of children in Tibetan and decide to investigate, schools are always interesting places to visit.

The school, still under construction, already has a satellite dish.

The school is a monk school, when we arrive, all of the boys are busy chanting in Tibetan.

When class finishes, the young monks in training are the same curious boys you find everywhere.

The monk/teacher is as curious as the boys.

We find out on our second day that two Tibetans were killed the previous day, one shot for picking worms in the wrong field. The other is killed in a knife fight, quite common in Tibetan communities (every guy we see is carrying a knife). So much for small towns being safe. We’re told the sky burials here occur after the body has been buried for one year.

The day we leave Da Tong Ma, it snows. This, however, does not slow down our bus driver.