Finally have the India Visa and the flight ticket sorted out. I am flying out to Varanasi from Kathmandu, to enjoy the bizarre "under age of 30" 30% discount from Indian Airline. It seems to be the only viable way to get to Varanasi from here, since the Maoist insurgency is quite apparent south of Kathmandu. I heard some travelers made it over to the border but I am really not in the mood of another adventure. And having seen the long distance buses packed with locals and some of them have to sit on the roof rack for hours and hours, I started to open my wallet for a ticket to India.

I spent good part of last few days reading books, in particular books about Tibet. Which make me start to think about the long and sad conflict between the Tibetan and Chinese people. And I found some old photos of Tibet taken 60 years ago before Chinese occupation. Even in the poorly printed color of bad and white, the Samye Monastery, the Potala, the fort in Shigatse, I just cannot imagine how stunning they once were and keep my eyes off the photos. I now have first person contact with all the places, the Samye monastery is nothing more than a few broken buildings surrounded by the circular wall with few old monks fiddling the prayer wheels. And now I recalled Daniel saying: "It sucks!". This comment is rather personal but totally understandable after an epic 7 hours ride from Lhasa just to see this sadly place. And the author of Return to Tibet simply said "it is destroyed", and it is destroyed not only in the physical way (in fact the Chinese government now started to restore them), it is the cultural and spritual destruction that being depicted from the photos made my head shaking.

A day trip to Naragakot