Tibetan fashion

Its hot in the mountains and there are no clouds in sight. We are melting beneath all our layers of clothing. We are in Tibetan dress,wearing thick 20 pound olive-colored woolen overcoats with a fine warm lining and sleeves that reach down below our knees. It was our host monk Yone's idea to dress us up. An important Lama (monk) was coming to the monastery and the village was dressing up for the ocassion. Nomads and pilgrims were arriving from the surrounding prairies in thir finest dress, so it was only fitting that we too dress up. Not many tourists reach this Monastery/village, let alone foreigners. And by chance we found lodging with a monk through a horseman outside the village. Our traditional dress was a great success. Tentatively we stepped out of Yone's spartan living room only to find the dress opened up doors and brought many invitations for tea as well as broad smiles or fits of laughter from young and old. I had to perfect the art of slow fine tea sipping in order to please my hosts and avoid second or third servings. In this predominantly male village, there was only one female bathroom in the center of town... and the logistics of balancing with my heavy overcoat in the two foot by three foot enclosure... well, made dehydration seem like an easier option. It turns out the high Lama was fashionably late by 5 hours... So our day was spent waiting with the pilgrims or with various groups of monks sipping tea. Heads kept popping in and out to take a look at their first foreigners. By the time he finally arrived, since we knew quite a bit of people by then, as the procession moved through the village, people parted or pushed us forward in order for us to get a better view. With our camaras tucked into the folds or our overcoats, we were able to weave in and out of the procession with ease.