Tourists are told that Tibet’s Rongbuk (Rongphu) monastery is the highest in the world, but it isn’t. That honour goes to the slightly higher monastery at Dirapuk, facing Mount Kailash far to the west.(*) Nonetheless, at 5,000 metres (16,400 feet) above sea level, Rongbuk is magnificently located on the northern approach to the world’s highest mountain, known in the West as Mount Everest and in Tibet as Qomolongma, “Goddess Mother of the Earth”. A visit can be humbling, in more ways than one.
Rongbuk Monastery
Unlike other well-known Tibetan monasteries, Rongbuk isn’t ancient. It was only founded in 1902, where previously there had been nothing but meditation caves in the hillside. It came to Western attention when a British expedition visited in 1921 while reconnoitring possible routes to the top of Everest. With the southern approach in Nepal then closed to foreigners, the Tibet route would be the only access for climbers until after the Second World War. Then, in the 1950s, the situation reversed. Nepal opened to foreigners while Chinese-occupied Tibet was closed, so the first successful summit of Everest was made from Nepal.
North of the Himalayas the isolated Rongbuk monastery, like most others in 1970s Tibet, would fall victim to China’s unrestrained and undisciplined Red Guards – paramilitary youth encouraged to destroy all manifestations of ancient culture, especially religion. A decade later, a photojournalist described it “as desolate a place as man could imagine…without a single ceiling; just broken walls stretching a hundred yards up a hillside devoid of life, where hundreds of lamas and pilgrims once worshiped.”
Happily the monastery was rebuilt in the 1980s and now looks ancient again. These days mention of the iconoclastic Cultural Revolution is taboo, and demolition of Rongbuk is discreetly described (if at all) as “the severe destruction”. Visitors are left to assume that means an earthquake.
The Guesthouse
The guesthouse below the monastery proved to be basic to say the least. Our customized little five-person expedition arrived late in the day and went to bed early, although sleep eluded me in that thin, cold air. A chilly late-night visit to the toilet was not for the shy, with no doors and the men’s side consisting of four holes in the concrete floor separated by waist-high dividers. But back in bed, gazing at the moonlit face of the “Goddess Mother of the Earth” was more than compensation enough.
A Kora Around the Monastery
In the morning our ever resourceful guides served up a hot breakfast of fried egg on honey-drizzled pancake, washed down with hot Tibetan butter tea before we set off for a “kora” around the monastery. These meditative clockwise walks around venerated sites are an established Buddhist custom in Tibet.
Panting up a hill which would have been easy enough at sea level, I greeted two elderly ladies sitting beside the path with a breathless “tashi delek” (hello) and received warm, wizened smiles in return. Later, as I sat beside the path catching my breath, they put me to shame as they strolled past energetically, chatting away easily.
Thoughts on Aging
While spinning prayer wheels and admiring the mani stones around the monastery walls, I reflected on aging. Our media sometimes seem fixated on the idea that a growing number of “elderly” (however that’s defined) threaten to overwhelm the health care system. Perhaps so, but not inevitably. We occasionally see stories of “super-agers” who seem to defy the ticking clock, but they are usually portrayed as rare exceptions. Either way, the people who write these stories are rarely “seniors” themselves.
Genetics play a role of course, but we might consider learning from those Tibetan matriarchs; living simply, eating modestly but well and, above all, being active. We humans didn’t evolve to spend hours slumped on a couch in front of an electronic screen, eating more than we need. We evolved to walk.
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(*) I’ve only learned recently that Dirapuk is higher than Rongbuk but haven’t gone back to correct my 2020 story-map. on Tibetan Pilgrimage. This is what the lonely Dirapuk monastery looks like.
There’s a picture of Mount Kailash looking back from here in my 2019 story about the Kailash Kora.