Travel Day 1079 – Kopan Monastery, NEPAL
One thing I was really looking forward to while coming to Kopan Monastery was the great vegetarian food…
Vegetarian Food at Kopan Monastery
This was almost a bit surprising, because when I was looking at my diary from two years ago, I was finding that the biggest complaint I had about Nepal was in regards to the food. By the time I was saying Bye-bye Kopan and Bye-bye Nepal, I was really sick of the local food which only seemed to be nothing but Daal Bhat. This one single dish consisting of rice, watery lentils and potato curry summarized the entire cuisine of Nepal in two short words…
This time around, I simply avoided Daal Bhat altogether when I was in the city by simply eating vegetarian food in one of the cheap Tandori places. They mostly served fresh roti and naan with a combination of very tasty Indian curries. This was certainly something I could handle, but I was obviously able to handle the amazing vegetarian food at Kopan Monastery as well…
Vegetarian Food at Kopan Monastery
Technically speaking most of the dishes also consisted of variations of Daal Bhat, but especially the variations made all the difference. There were obviously still some visitors of the monastery, probably normally meat eaters in real life, who mentioned that the food was exactly the same every day. But for me personally after being a vegetarian for a couple of years now and especially after trekking in the mountains and eating very simplistic food, the cuisine at the monastery was not only a blessing but also quite different every single day…
Of course rice and daal where served with every meal, but besides that there were usually at least two different vegetable curries, steamed vegetables, tofu, salads and fresh fruits. Especially the fruits and the fresh salads, meaning lettuce, carrots, cucumbers or radishes were a real treat for me. All the months in India and Nepal I was always afraid of eating anything raw or fresh, because I didn’t want to ruin my stomach, but here at Kopan all vegetables and fruits were luckily safe to eat…
Vegetarian Food at Kopan Monastery
This circumstance plus the fact that the vegetarian food was served buffet style lead me to overeating pretty much every single meal. By the time food was served I was always really hungry and since everything looked and smelled so amazing, that when I had finally passed all different cooking pots my plate was always almost overflowing with food. Obviously I never wanted to waste any food and so I finished every single plate with the resolution to practice more self control by the next meal time…
Unfortunately that didn’t really happen until the last day and so I rather decided to enjoy my last meals at Kopan, the home made peanut butter with freshly baked bread in the morning, the great vegetarian lunch and the hearty soups with fresh bread with bread in the evening…
Find all Kopan Monastery 2013 Photos here.
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