Living.Vicariously.Through: Tongren & Tongkas

After our time in the grasslands we were so looking forward to heading farther west to a place called Tongren. It is famous for the painstakingly detailed, delicately hand-painted pictures of Buddhas called tongkas. Other than this information, we knew little else of Tongren. We foolishly assumed this meant that Tongren was a small town. It’s not. We were noticeably disappointed when the bus rolled to a stop at the station in the middle of this busy city.

Without hesitation we decided to just buy a bus ticket out the following day at noon. That would give us 24 hours to see what we wanted to see and get out. And that’s exactly what we did…after searching for a hotel of course.

Turns out Tongren is much like Lanzhou in that there are many hotels but not many for foreigners. There are two, in fact. Not far from the bus station and right across the street from one another. We selected the cheaper of the two at 220Y, dropped our bags, ate a bit of our food stash, and then headed down to meet up with Phil and Judy in the lobby to head to the monastery to see the tongkas.

There are two monasteries just outside of the city (we actually passed them on the bus on the way in), an upper and a lower. The upper is less touristy, so we started there. We were met by a monk who was extremely kind and generous. He showed us into locked temples and areas and allowed us to take photos even though it was clearly posted that they weren’t permitted. All he asked of us was a donation, if we were inclined to give one. We all agreed that we were and gave him 10Y each. After which he informed us that with this donation we would be able to light a yak butter candle and also two sticks of incense. This monastery visit was worth much more than the 10Y we donated, that’s for sure.

We also got to meet with one of the artists who takes months to hand paint these beautiful tongka creations. He was a fairly young monk who was also very kind and generous with his time and his stories. He told us of some of the hardships that the Tibetan people face at the hand of the Chinese government. It was nearly heartbreaking to watch his kind face fill with sorrow for the acts inflicted on the victims from his tales.

We then headed to the lower temple, but Steve and I didn’t go in as the admission was 30Y and we were already told it was more touristy and the quality of tongkas was lower than that of the upper monastery. So we sat outside the wall of the monastery and talked while we waited for Judy and Phil to walk around inside. After they were finished, we headed back to Tongren for some dinner and then off our separate ways until we would reconvene in the morning to head for the bus station to get our bus to Xining.