Written by Octavia, 2021 Cohort
In 2011, my parents and I had a really memorable family vacation to Tibet. I look back to this trip fondly and I even became interested in ancient religions, as a result.
This trip started with the purchase of a valuable herb called Cordyceps Sinensis, which is great for building immunity. This herb is very expensive in a normal pharmacy, but maybe cheaper in the very cold, high altitude regions where it originates. My father has a friend who is an officer in a small border village in Tibet, so in order to buy cheap Cordyceps Sinensis, he made a phone call and he promised that he will help us.
People believe Tibet is an isolated province because of the high altitude, but it can be tranquil, and full of picturesque villages. My parents and I first flew to the city Lhasa, after we had struggled to overcome the high altitude reaction, we rent a car and drove over twelve hours to reach the small county called Yadong.
On the night of our arrival, we were warmly treated by the uncle with yak beef hotpot and Tibetan milk tea, and the next day morning he helped us buy some cheap Cordyceps Sinensis in a local herdsman’s tents. After we had completed our main purpose, we began to feel relaxed, but in fact, my bizarre experience had only just begun. The uncle took me to a tiny local temple and shared a lunch with the temple hoster, after that, he took us to a very dark room and there was a female mummy was displayed in the glass case. According to the hoster, it was a body of a Rakshasa (a kind of Tibetan female ghost) who has been sealed here for many many years.
Even today I still remember the demonic gangs of that female mummy, and I think since then, I started interested in studying primitive religions.