Sky Burial
I first heard about the Sky Burials while I was in Northern Sichuan. It is a traditional Tibetan burial method that involves cutting up the body of the decease, and offered it to the birds. It is a way for the soul to ascent to heaven. I was more than a little intrigued back then, and had even considered altering much of my plans to go to this monastery in the northern tip of Sichuan called LaMuSi to see for it myself. LaMuSi was then 2 days of bus ride away, and death/burial at this remote location was infrequent, so people had to wait some times a week to actually wittiness it. With each morning, you will have to catch a ride down to the mountain, climb up there and ask the monks if there is going to be a ceremony that day. It is basically waiting for people to die.
This kind of make LaMuSi a backpackers town, where there is bars, and restaurant serving western food. One I have heard so much about was it's Yak Burger. Upon hearing it from one guy to the other, it had become my 2nd reason to want to go there. :-) But it was not to be. Sky burial is a lot more frequent here in Tibet, it occurs daily, except for Sundays, and a few days in a month. Most are only open only to the locals., but one called ZhiGongSi is open to the public, it is 4-5 hrs drive from Lhasa. It is one of the highest Sky Burial Site in the world, so a lot of Tibetan wanted to get bury there. With the Sky Burial still haunting my mind, I decided to organize a trip to head out there. After two days of work, and some last minutes changes, the trip had reached its critical mass to move alone.
It was 2 AM when we woke up... , with just a little over two hours of sleep, we got in the jeep and head out of Lhasa in the rain. The headed east down this long road to the outskirts of the town, lit only with its head lights everything is a monotone color and the road with its tall tree lined its side, the road looked like a long tunnel into the darkness. It was like a dream.
I was suprised to find people, bikes, tricycle, tractors on the road. None of them have any light on, and each time we pass one, it is like a ghost racing by. It was very spooky.
After four hours of bumpy ride, we arrived at the monastery still dark. A little early.... We all dozed off.
When we awaken by our drivers 2 hours later, we saw a team of workers, and monks from the monastery came out of the door, some carrying on his back a large sack. Through the morning fog, we can still make up the shape of a man in its fetal position. The group walked up to the mountain without much to say, and we followed..... Half way up the mountain, that is when we first notice those vultures circling above our head, we counted maybe
10. Up higher we go, the more of them we saw, some flying so close to us, U can hear the sound of the feather rustling. This is when we realize just how big these guys are.
The guys circled the alter once, and put down the sacks in the middle of the alter(which is no more than 5m in dia, filled with large round river rocks). The man go about doing there work, some chanting scriptures, some sharpening their knives, some trying to keeps the vultures away. By now, there is like over two hundreds of them gathering up at the slope overlooking the alter.
The men cut opened their sacks(we can make out like eight bodies) and began to cut open the bodies, to make it easy for the vultures to consume. After 15-20 minuses of work, the men in charge of keeping the vultures at bay gave the signal, and the vultures rush towards the alter in its arkward steps. You are like 10 feet away, and U can hear the hissing, the grawing, the sound of bones knocking on stones. The whole alter was covered with vultures. I had never seen anything like it.
After 15 minutes or so, the men began chasing the vultures away and began cutting up the bodies a little more, and the process repeats again. When finally there are only bones left. The men bought out their stone hammer and began to crush the bones into pulps, and then the feeding continues.... 3-4 hours later, there is nothing left of the bodies, except for some small pieces of bone left on the ground.
It was a very strange experience, everyone that went there was still thinking of what to make of it still. As am I.
(If U do find yourself @ a Sky Burial, please treat it like a funeral for a family member. We have this one particular Israelis, that decided to take some photographs, despite knowing before hand that it is not allowed. The guy was pretty sneaky about it too.... It is of no wonder that the Israeli travelers are getting such a bad reputation as being loud,rude, and arrogant.)
This kind of make LaMuSi a backpackers town, where there is bars, and restaurant serving western food. One I have heard so much about was it's Yak Burger. Upon hearing it from one guy to the other, it had become my 2nd reason to want to go there. :-) But it was not to be. Sky burial is a lot more frequent here in Tibet, it occurs daily, except for Sundays, and a few days in a month. Most are only open only to the locals., but one called ZhiGongSi is open to the public, it is 4-5 hrs drive from Lhasa. It is one of the highest Sky Burial Site in the world, so a lot of Tibetan wanted to get bury there. With the Sky Burial still haunting my mind, I decided to organize a trip to head out there. After two days of work, and some last minutes changes, the trip had reached its critical mass to move alone.
It was 2 AM when we woke up... , with just a little over two hours of sleep, we got in the jeep and head out of Lhasa in the rain. The headed east down this long road to the outskirts of the town, lit only with its head lights everything is a monotone color and the road with its tall tree lined its side, the road looked like a long tunnel into the darkness. It was like a dream.
I was suprised to find people, bikes, tricycle, tractors on the road. None of them have any light on, and each time we pass one, it is like a ghost racing by. It was very spooky.
After four hours of bumpy ride, we arrived at the monastery still dark. A little early.... We all dozed off.
When we awaken by our drivers 2 hours later, we saw a team of workers, and monks from the monastery came out of the door, some carrying on his back a large sack. Through the morning fog, we can still make up the shape of a man in its fetal position. The group walked up to the mountain without much to say, and we followed..... Half way up the mountain, that is when we first notice those vultures circling above our head, we counted maybe
10. Up higher we go, the more of them we saw, some flying so close to us, U can hear the sound of the feather rustling. This is when we realize just how big these guys are.
The guys circled the alter once, and put down the sacks in the middle of the alter(which is no more than 5m in dia, filled with large round river rocks). The man go about doing there work, some chanting scriptures, some sharpening their knives, some trying to keeps the vultures away. By now, there is like over two hundreds of them gathering up at the slope overlooking the alter.
The men cut opened their sacks(we can make out like eight bodies) and began to cut open the bodies, to make it easy for the vultures to consume. After 15-20 minuses of work, the men in charge of keeping the vultures at bay gave the signal, and the vultures rush towards the alter in its arkward steps. You are like 10 feet away, and U can hear the hissing, the grawing, the sound of bones knocking on stones. The whole alter was covered with vultures. I had never seen anything like it.
After 15 minutes or so, the men began chasing the vultures away and began cutting up the bodies a little more, and the process repeats again. When finally there are only bones left. The men bought out their stone hammer and began to crush the bones into pulps, and then the feeding continues.... 3-4 hours later, there is nothing left of the bodies, except for some small pieces of bone left on the ground.
It was a very strange experience, everyone that went there was still thinking of what to make of it still. As am I.
(If U do find yourself @ a Sky Burial, please treat it like a funeral for a family member. We have this one particular Israelis, that decided to take some photographs, despite knowing before hand that it is not allowed. The guy was pretty sneaky about it too.... It is of no wonder that the Israeli travelers are getting such a bad reputation as being loud,rude, and arrogant.)
posted by 54 at 2:05 AM
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