: invitations :

It was just us and the monks at the teahouse for the night, and in the morning, they invited us to a private puja and allowed us to photograph the ceremony. We also got to drink some Tibetan tea, which is an interesting concoction of tea, milk, yak butter and SALT! It wasn’t exactly the boost one would want from a morning beverage, but we remained grateful and courteous and drank it down.

After we left, and as we walked our final day to Lukla, Mingma invited us over to his parent’s home, which was not too far off the beaten path we were on. It was a very touching thing, to be invited to his childhood home to meet his parents, and after making sure it wouldn’t be an imposition, we accepted, and made our way down into the valley.

Only his mother was home, and she went to the garden, picked fresh mint and made us mint tea. She didn’t speak a word of English, but her smile translated her genuine happiness in meeting us. We had a great visit!

Then we continued onward, to Lukla, where day two of a three day Spring festival was happening at the Monastery. After dropping our bags, we washed our faces and went to check it out – as did the whole town, it seemed. The monks played their big horns and drums and chanted over a loud speaker. Mingma's brother is one of the monks at this Monastery and we got to see him perform in costume, both frightening and exciting the children in the audience.

We then made our way back to our teahouse and ate pizza with yak cheese for dinner, played canasta and listened to Bollywood t.v. Once we returned to our room for the night, we could still hear the festival music into the late hours, despite the fact that the Monastery was pretty far away.

And it’s back to Kathmandu in the early morning.