Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
with yellow rapeseed fields hemmed in by wattle fences appear on the banks. These
achingly beautiful landscapes are backed by towering snow-capped peaks so be sure you
make time for photo breaks.
At the 4036km mark look for a small bridge over to Bakha Island. Cross and head left
200m to reach Bakha Gompa, an 800-year-old Nyingma monastery which was once the
seat of power in Powo (the traditional name of the formerly highly independent region
bordering Kongpo). The monastery is home to 12 monks and is reputed to have been built
on the grave site of the illegitimate child of Princess Wencheng and Tibetan Minister Gar
Tongtsen. Gar is the man who had arranged the marriage alliance between the Tang prin-
cess and his king Songtsen Gampo, and had also accompanied her from Chang'an to Tibet.
While the stillborn child of an illicit affair might seem an odd thing to commemorate
with a temple, Princess Wencheng is revered across eastern Tibet, where she is often seen
more as a private missionary to the region than as part of an official exchange between
Lhasa and the Tang dynasty. Numerous locations in Kham claim to be the meeting point of
the princess and Songtsen Gampo, while legends claim she left the real Jowo Buddha
statue, and other parts of her dowry, in Kham temples. Stories also recount the love affair
with Minister Gar that tell of either a live babe abandoned to its fate in a basket sent down-
river, or of the infant buried at Bakha.
The name Bakha in fact comes from basa, which means hiding place. Historically, la-
mas of the monastery believed themselves to be reincarnations of the dead infant, and
scholar Cameron Davis Warner in his very readable essay A Miscarriage of History writes
that their dual Chinese-Tibetan origin may have been understood by Powo rulers as justi-
fication for their independence from both China and central Tibetan authority.
While the current Bakha Monastery is small, the views of the surrounding mountains
and river, to say nothing of the island itself, are near indescribably charming; this is a
fairy-land landscape that is, not surprisingly, infused with connections and manifestations
to Buddhist faith. Ask the monks to point out the Naga tree, as well as Elephant Mountain
(unusually, not a bad likeness of a profile of an elephant with a long stretched trunk).
Sleeping & Eating
Rinchen Family Guesthouse GUESTHOUSE
(| Rénqīng Jiātíng Lǚguǎn
139 0894 0848; r from ¥180)
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