Silk Road - Qinghai Lake 青海湖, Laji Mountain 拉鸡山, and Taersi Monastery 塔尔寺 by Aaron

 Qinghai Lake, Laji Mountain, and Taersi Monastery

~Aaron

The Silk Road

The Silk Road Day 6:

Qinghai Lake, Laji Mountain, Taersi, Xining

Beautiful sunrise at Qinghai Lake

     The sunrise at Qinghai Lake, Laji Mountain, and Taersi Monastery were all wonderful. The sunrise from Qinghai Lake was very beautiful. Laji Mountain has a tower at its high peak. Taersi Monastery has many temples inside the area.

The prayer flags 经幡

A small tower

Qinghai Lake

     The Qinghai Lake sunrise had just started when we watched. The sky became orange, then the sun came out behind the distant mountains. This happened only within 5 minutes. So hold your breath and enjoy the beautiful scene. After  the sun fully pulled its face out, we began building stone towers. On the way back, we stopped at some prayer flags 经幡 (that are switched for new flags yearly based on the Tibetan calendar). They are called so because when the wind blows, the flags flip many times, as though they're reading sutras. The prayer flags come in set of five, blue, white, red, green and yellows. The colorful rectangular cloth are often stung around mountain ridges, peaks or lakes. They are used to bless surrounding.

Tasted the salty Qinghai Lake water and built a stone tower

Laji Mountain 拉鸡山

Laji Mountain

Laji Mountain with a sign saying

3820 meters above sea level

     Laji Mountain （拉鸡山） is a tall mountain. Even though its peak was 3820 meters, a tower was still built at the top. In the Tibetan religion, the tower was supposed to mean something (I don’t know its purpose). Sheep and cattle were kept close by, probably as food.

Laji Mountain

Tibetan sheep and Tibetan Yak living freely at 3820 meters above sea level

Taersi Monastery 塔尔寺

Lamas

Taersi Monastery

     The Taersi Monastery （塔尔寺） was built in 1377 (Ming Dynasty) and contains full of facts. It also known as Kumbum which means a hundred thousand Buddha images in Tibetan. The butter sculptures (酥油花), murals (壁画), and appliques (堆绣) are known as its unique three wonders （塔尔寺艺术三绝）. We saw some lamas walking around, and one of them was using a phone. The first hall we visited had many animal sacrifices to a god. It also contains a kitchen (大茶房) and a medicine institute (医明经院). The Grand Golden Tiled Hall （大金瓦殿） is probably the most famous part inside the monastery. It contained a silver statue of a Buddha with a white sandalwood tree as its core! A myth says that when the founder of Taersi Monastery was born, the blood from his cut-off umbical cord formed a white sandalwood tree （菩提树）. It also says a tower was built around this tree. People believed this was supernatural, so they built the many other halls to form today’s Taersi Monastery.

From Left: Dhammapala Hall护法殿, Kitchen大茶房, Medicine Institute医明经院

The Grand Golden Tiled Hall and a sandalwood tree

大金瓦殿及殿外的菩提树儿子

The Grand Golden Tiled Hall

viewed from far away

The prayer wheels 转经筒

     The Qinghai Lake sunrise, Laji Mountain, and Taersi Monastery were all extremely fun. The Qinghai Lake sunrise made the early waking time worth it. Laji Mountain is very tall with some Tibetan religion at its tip. Taersi Monastery is a place to learn about religion. The sunrise, Laji Mountain, and Taersi Monastery all had awesome things.

The butter sculptures 塔尔寺酥油花

The mural 塔尔寺壁画

The appliques 塔尔寺堆绣