Part 7, Lomanthang

Lomanthang is the royal city of the kingdom of Mustang. Through our guesthouse, our guide makes arrangements for us to meet with the king. He is in town, and this follows a very specific ritual. We are told that our audience with him will be late in the afternoon. With that arranged, we get ready to stroll about town and look at the monasteries.

The first one is locked, and no one seems to be sure who has the key. It looks freshly renovated, with sharp and fresh woodcarvings on the door. We don't want to simply idle in front of a locked door, so we move into the neighbouring monastery. Upon entering the courtyard, we are overwhelmed by noise from a generator. It feels and looks like a building-site, and in a way it is. We were planning to spend 15 minutes here, but it is over 2 hours later when we leave. This was the big surprise of the day...

The groundfloor appears shut, even though we don't try the door. Instead, we climb upstairs and enter. Inside, we see 6-10 people - mostly women - on scaffolding with lights illuminating the walls in front of them. Up to our right, one woman takes a particular interest in our arrival. She jumps down and approaches us. It is very obvious that she is not Nepali - she is clearly caucasian. And this is how we meet Nelly.

Nelly is French, and works as an art-restorer. I never thought about it, but this occupation requires artistic skill combined with chemistry and art history. She is here, together with two others, on a project supoprted by the American Himal Foundation. They are restoring the decorations of the temple. Nelly is very passionate about this, and soon has Joe and me spellbound. We are given a close and personal tour of this amazing collection of mandalas, with Nelly patiently explaining the special aspects of her favourites. Brush-strokes are explained, restoration is explained, the art of drawing a simple line (according to her there is no such thing - it requires superb concentration to draw the right line) and the challenge of finding the right pigments today to restore wall-paintings that are 700 years old.

In many places, the wall and painting is damaged beyond repair. In these places they restore the wall, but do not try to recreate the full mandala. There is not enough information for them to work with. Nelly points out minute details, such as what looks like little gold-dots which, on close inspection, turn out to be miniscule circles. She shows the damage that can be done by poorly handled restoration, she shows the humor in the mandalas (I never knew there was a disco in them!) and she talk passionately about ancient buddhist art.

We talk about the restoration, the training of the local women and she lets slip their secret weapon when restoring the colours of these amazing religious artifacts. I was expecting something fancy, like a specially designed solvent, or instant freeze-drying of the surface, or an advanced chemical rub, but no. After years of education and training, Nelly has established that on this surface and on these pigments the best solution is something as simple as an eraser. Yup, roughly the same variety you used in school, I'm sure. Produced by Staedtler. On rough stains, perhaps a little saliva would need to be added. Apart from that, water and other solvents did more damage than good. Joe and I remain captivated.

Then she starts telling us about the amazing mandalas on the third floor, where her colleague Luigi is working. After another half-hour or so if personal and expert guidance to the mandalas on the second floor, we make our way upstairs to meet Luigi.

The third floor of this temple has an interesting history. First, the monks initially did not want it restored at all. The third floor is reserved for tantric teaching, i.e. the handling of passions, and only very senior monk have ever been allowed in. But Luigi managed to persuade them that they would benefit from a restoration, and so it was opened. That is how we find ourselves in a room which until earlier this year has rarely been seen, and will soon be locked never to be viewed again by mere tourists.

The mandalas are different. They follow different lay-outs, some are even assymetrical with what appears to be cubes or dice randomly placed inside. One has eight radials from the centre, compared with the usual 4. Luigi explains that he is confident that at one point in time there were 54 mandalas in here. Only a few of them survive. Those that do can't help but captivate. Some are sexually explicit, others are not. All share a predominantly red background, and it is tempting to conclude that the color of passion is universal.

With all this ancient art, and with expert guidance, we are so captivated that we forget one small thing. To take pictures...

We return after lunch to the ground floor, where Samantha from Argentina is doing something I have never seen done before: Building a wall using a small syringe. She is 3 meters up in the air, tapping the wall in different places. She stops, picks up a syringe which would fit right in to a surgery, taps the wall again and then promises the wall that this won't hurt a bit. In the syringe goes, and liquids are injected. This process becomes hypnotic to watch after a while, and we spend half an hour watching wall-building by syringe.

The rest of the day is an anti-climax, and that includes the visit to the king. The palace is old and run-down. There is a feeling of decay in the palace which I cannot sense elsewhere in Mustang, and this saddens me.

We go to bed with images of glorious mandalas on our retinas, accompanied by soundbites from three passionate professionals: Nelly, Luigi and Samantha who made this day a highlight of our trip. We hope to see them again when they return to Kathmandu in September.