Pat and Doug admired traditional Tibetan homes with sloping stone walls, elaborately carved and colorfully painted window trim and doors. They said that some rooftops were orange, covered with the drying corn crop, others were green with drying turnips. Everywhere, people were busy with their harvest and thrashing their wheat crop.
They wished that they had been able to communicate with Tibetans that they encountered in smaller towns and villages. Tibetans seemed friendly and willing to talk. Once Pat and Doug were invited in to a Tibetan house and served yak butter tea and peaches. The woman who welcomed them into her home was a gracious host, a 28-year-old taking care of her mother-in-law, a woman Pat’s age who appeared to be completely crippled by arthritis.
At one prayer-flag-covered-rock-outcrop, Pat and Doug were told that it was a site for the ancient Tibetan ritual of sky burials. In this ceremony, Tibetans put a deceased person’s body out for the vultures to feed upon and in this way, human life remained connected with the natural cycle of life and death.
http://www.zmescience.com/other/the-sky-burial/
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