Six Days in Nepal V

After our visit to Rigon Tashi Choeling we carried on to Pharping. When we first visited Pharping it was a small rural village. There was one road that went up to the monastery and another dirt road with a few shops. At the time—2007—the place reminded me a little of a Western frontier town. It had something of that feel of being in transition and slightly wild. Now ‘civilisation’ and ‘progress’ has definitely arrived at Pharping and it now feels like a tiny Kathmandu.

Fortunately the area with the Padmasambhava caves is still only accessible by foot and remains much the same.

Padmasambhava’s hand print in the rock

As we walked down from the caves to get back to the coach for the journey home, we passed a group of monks playing cricket. There was something rather inspiringly matter-of-fact about the rolled up monk’s skirt and their T-shirts with the stupa and gompa in the background.

Kathmandu traffic from the coach