April 2, 2006-
After breakfast we took another long and winding car drive. The mountains all around with bridges in between them make me think of what the Inca Empire must have looked like. After a dizzying journey we finally stopped at a small village that raised cows and grew rice. The scenery was beautiful! Rice patties were on every side of us! We had to walk on upraised little dirt paths the whole way.
Not all of the terraced fields were of rice. Some of the patties were full of just plain grass and cows grazing. To keep the cows from climbing from patty to patty they had ropes just long enough to keep them from eating the rice. I was just about to point out the length of the ropes to Dad when all of sudden, one of the cows stretched out his tongue and wrapped it around a stalk of rice. Man it was funny! I guess the farmers measured the length of the cow but forgot to include the tongue.
We followed the path up through another part of the town on the other side of the rice. It’s amazing in a world with television and internet, that somewhere people still get by so simply. The path went up a mountain, and when we got to the end there was a monastery. One of the things I like about Buddhism is the art. It is so full of color and energy. Karma told us the names of all the gods in the pictures and what they represented.
We got to see a lot more artwork when we went to a zone, a sort of castle used for both religious and political purposes. The area was so huge and empty that I think it would be great for filming an action movie fight scene in. On the eaves were pigeons all cooing and looking down at us. I thought that was cool, and Dad said that was because I haven’t seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds yet. As I was walking through the courtyard, I noticed that there were a lot of bees flying around. I looked around to see where they were coming from and I caught sight of the largest bee hive I have ever laid eyes on! It had to twice as large as my torso, and there were literally hundreds of bees flying every direction.
We listened to the monks chant for a while before we returned to the hotel. The dinner was no different from all the other meals we have eaten. Just as we were finishing our meal, a cat ran into the restaurant from outside. I got to pet the cat, and an equally friendly dog too.
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