Travel Photography | 25. Piece of mind at Ivolginsky Datsan

This morning (afternoon as usual) we (Elise & Jasper) decided to make an excursion to Ivolginsky Datsan, the centre for Buddhism in Siberia I think.

On the way to the bus station, we stumbled upon a wedding party!

We took two buses to get to the temple and it was pretty easy. People in Russia and especially here are super friendly and genuinely helpful. Even if we sometimes don’t understand each other that well 🙂

The first trip we got lucky to sit with this 17-year old local university freshman (IT & math) Sush ( I think). (note the lady with a cat in her bag)

He’s English was very good and for the duration of the first trip, he was working as a translator between us and all the rest oh the passengers around. Very interested in us and we in them.

The first stop was a bit hard to spot and we stepped off few stops too early. Luckily these nice local girls were helpful enough to walk us to the right stop and help us get to the right bus.

Finally, at the datsan, we are greeted with the tourist crap.

Prayer wheels. Some of them are made of old tin cans!

Some are huge!

Flashy ones too.

These ladies were doing some kind of approaching ritual. Fascinating.

Again we are greeted with a flurry of colours and kitchy, kitchy ornaments and statues, take a look, they are just awesome!!

Gotta love the fake red-brick look and the chimney sticking out of the window! Featuring altar(?) of sacrifice on the right.

Contrast

Prayer ribbons hung all over the trees

Stairway to heaven?

Lit one for blessingmy journey.

Bambi!

I think inside here is the preserved body of Lama Itigelov, who died in 1927 and the body looks like he died yesterday! Unfortunately, it was closed and we couldn’t sneak a peek…

Cute doggie!

Some people apparently live around here and this is their toilet.

Well with electronic pump operated via light switch!

And the electricity is coming from this mini coal plant on-site!

On the way back we were. Time to cook dinner…

(First published 14/10/2011 at LiveJournal)