Sky Burial:
The most impressive sight is the Sky burial site up from the town. Bones and skeletons with chunks of torn flesh still clinging to the bone litter the floor around the site. Tread carefully say the nuns who collect 15 RMB for the tickets.
Inside there are women working busily to chop up the bones and flesh and remove any clothing to make it easier for the vultures to consume.
The circling vultures eye you greedily no doubt wondering how long it will be before you are their dinner.
If you are in town for a ceremony you will see the dead body being chopped up and the skull punctured at the back to allow the birds to get at the brain.
Monasteries; Langmusi has one monastery in Gansu and one on the Sichuan side of the town. The sky burial site is just above the Gansu monastery and is free for you to wander around though all the buildings are closed. The Sichuan monastery is also closed but there is a 10 RMB charge if you wander within 500m of any of the buildings, even if the ticket office is closed, there are no signs. The monks are violent when it comes to collecting money and require you to pay each time you enter that part of town.
Having paid for a tour of some closed building in the morning we went up to the hill quite a distance from the monastery compound to see the sunset. Two monks who demanded we pay 20 RMB approached us. Speaking Chinese we explained we had tickets from the morning and did not intend to go to the monastery again anyway. At this they became angry and started to push and tugged my girlfriend, Ping, who is a small and slim girl. We explained that I would go and get the tickets that we had left in the hotel; they refused to accept this pushing new tickets under our noses and tried to rip Pings bag out of her hand. At this I shoved one of the monks out of the way, at which he raised his fist to hit me, but the other monk held him back. Still holding Ping in their grasp and being very rough and threatening with her, she ended up with scratches and cuts on her arms a pushing contest ensued between the two monks and me. Neither them nor I was prepared to throw the first punch but tempers were near breaking. They bundled Ping into the formerly locked ticket office (it was evening after all), seeing a brand new television sitting in the office I charged in and lifted it above my head threatening to throw it to the floor screaming in Chinese " I’ll give you’re your f**king 20 RMB you low down filthy scum" Alarmed by the possible loss of their TV they let Ping go and I put the TV down still cursing them and walked back to the hotel.
Despite western romantic notions of Tibetan Monks and Buddhism what you find is that most monks are uneducated peasants that turn to the priesthood as a means to eat. They become a class above the locals and chat away on the latest Nokia cell phones while driving the SUV’s up to the monastery.
The monks hang around in big groups leering at foreign travelers and women, I have heard of Lamas who approach western women for casual sex. They can get violent easily especially if you attempt to deprive them of money which seems to have has replaced Buddha as the chief influence of monastery life.
While traveling in Tibet entering the Sakyar monastery paying an entrance of 40RMB (5USD), which is a lot of money in China, I had a video camera in the bag. I decided to take a few shots having paid such a large entrance fee. Almost immediately monks demanding a 100RMB video camera charge surrounded me.
No signs on the door had informed me of this so I put it away and told them it wasn’t that interesting to be worth 100RMB. Again tempers flared and I was lucky to get out with my life and possessions intact.
Small monasteries are usually much more friendly, the problem is in places where there are many tour groups, the monks get used to generous donations and to tourists on a guided bus tour 5USD is not much. The result for me is a great loss of respect for Tibetan Buddhism.
