Norbulingka Institute
The Norbulingka Institute near Dharamsala was established to preserve Tibetan culture and traditional arts. It has workshops for thanka painting and appliqué, woodworking, metal sculpture and textiles, and produces top-notch work, all done by Tibetan refugees. There’s a beautiful shop where the goods are sold, a Buddhist temple, a doll museum, a delicious cafe, a [...]
Zanskar Wide Open
Here’s a collection of snapshots from Zanskar with my 50mm wide open, which creates a soft, dreamy effect that I love. The photo above is of four small nuns looking out to the road where a car is approaching Zangla Nunnery. (Cars don’t come every day!) The town in the latter shots is Padum, which [...]
Zangla Nunnery
This is Zangla Nunnery, a.k.a. Chomo Gompa. Thanks to two friends I’m staying in Angmo’s room. Angmo is the nunnery’s current Chantmaster which involves a lot of work and she’s rarely in her room, but she has more good energy and charm than anyone I’ve met in a long time. Since my ankle hasn’t healed [...]
A Wedding in Zanskar
Weddings are a huge reflection of the culture of Ladakh and Zanskar and are in a state of change like everything else here. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this marriage other than a constantly weeping bride, but what I got was an insight into the culture that I hadn’t known before. It was [...]
A Wedding in Zanskar — Scenes From the Road
I traveled with the groom’s side of the wedding party from Zangla to Shilla to bring the bride to the groom’s family home. Traditionally the groom stays in his village and waits for the bride to be brought to him, so neither the groom or bride was present for this part of the ceremony. The [...]
A Wedding in Zanskar — Arriving at the Bride’s Village
At Shilla all the villagers welcomed the groom’s party with food and chang and there was more music and dancing. The celebrations lasted all night as parties from the two families held a competition of songs and riddles, all part of the ritual. The dusk light was magical and I stayed until there wasn’t enough [...]
A Wedding in Zanskar — The Big Party
The next day the bride’s house filled with people. There was the main party room, a prayer room with about five monks doing a special wedding puja, a room that was taking stock of all the gifts, a busy kitchen, and a kind of den where the young guys started to party after sufficient chang [...]
A Wedding in Zanskar — The Dance Party
When the young guys in the den started dancing to the latest Ladakhi songs (played on every bus so I know them all by now) it felt like a window opened to the culture that I could relate to. I was so happy to see and feel this particular kind of freedom. I hadn’t seen [...]
A Great Little Day!
Today was a great little day for me. I stumbled onto a small festival where I was the only non-Ladakhi and the locals just brought me into the fold. The exact reason for the festival is still unclear to me, but monks and nuns from different monasteries were there to recite some Buddhist texts. The [...]
