Day 4: Lhasa (3rd day)

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The local tour agency in the end managed to get us slots to visit Potala in the morning. It was nice to know that they do try to deliver what they presented in the itinerary despite the strict rules imposed.


Potala palace, originally built by King Songsten Gampo, consists of the White palace and Red palace. The White palace serves the administration purpose while the Red is for religious purpose. Potala used to be the seat of Dalai Lama and the political centre of Tibet. Now, it is the state museum of China.

Inside Potala, there are numerous rooms, chapels and galleries of Buddhist statues, stupas and mandalas. As we are only allowed to spend one hour in Potala, Yu La, our guide pretty much brisk through the rooms. I now barely remembered anything. Well, it was an eye-opener nevertheless. It was afterall, Buddhism in 13days for me! 😊

Next stop was to Norbulingka, built by the 7th Dalai Lama and made the summer palace by the 8th Dalai Lama. Shotun sure was a big festival for Tibetans. Everyone was out picnicking and watching opera and just enjoying everyone's company. Oh what life!

Walking inside the summer palace, I must say Dalai Lama was a man of wisdom and advancement. He was already using a western toilet and bathroom then which was presented to him as a gift. There was also a radio in his bedroom...also a gift.

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Comments

[Bamboo]

Some Great place you don't know
Great travel story, I bet you wanna know something about Chinese First National Forest Park---ZhangJiaJie. It is fabulous, however, seldom known by foreign friends. Please read http://english.china-zjj.com/

[Devilish]

Some Great place you don't know
Hello Bamboo, Thanks for sharing ZhangJiaJie. Indeed beautiful! Will take this into my "must-go" list. :-P