The monks finish a sand mandala at Thiksey monastery

Mark -- thanks for taking and sharing the photos of the mandala. I also liked the photos of the buddha head in a previous post. I saw a mandala once before in a museum in Boston and it was very beautiful. In a monastery it looks even more beautiful and spiritual.

In response to your other entry about the lack of change in India, the problem is pandemic in Africa. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea we "earned" the equivalent of about $500 every three months, which was deposited into an account in a large city about 9 hours from my village. In order to stay in my village for a month or longer at a time, I'd have to withdraw a few hundred dollars in one-dollar and fifty-cent increments (since there was no change), which amounted to stacks and stacks of money, and then travel 9 hours in crowded vans with my stash.

Surprisingly, I had the same problem in Prague last summer. After not being able to buy anything small (snacks, post cards, etc) with large denominations pulled from the ATM machines, I finally went into a bank and asked for small bills. It worked!

Thanks again for your interesting postings. I've really enjoyed reading them.

Eli

Hi Eli:

Nice to hear from you. I like knowing someone I know back home is keeping tabs on me! Maybe it will keep me out of trouble. (Maybe not...)

Yes, I felt lucky showing up at the gompa at that time. It gave me a reason to just sit for a couple of hours while some other people did what they do well to make something beautiful.

And yes, the change entry I had been thinking about for a while. Then yesterday at his semi-posh restaurant in Haus Khaz in Delhi I was the first customer. It took the waiter twenty minutes to round up change from the other waiter, the cook, the custodian, etc. (88 rupees change for a 200 rupee payment, about two dollars change.) I did use the bank trick in Ladakh and got a thick stack of 100 rupee notes. I feel like Butch Cassidy carrying around ziplock bags of cash in my backpack.

Mark