Blogs from Lhasa, Tibet, China, Asia - page 26

October is an ideal time to visit Lhasa. What a joy to arrive to blue skies and golden leaves, to see the Potala Palace towering over the city, and to walk the Barkhor again. In late October, there are few tourists, just enough (in fact) to keep the restaurants open that serve western fare for the weary traveler. Parade of Pilgrims The Barkhor is the heart of Lhasa. It bustles with Tibetan pilgrims circumambulating the Jokhang temple and vendors selling everything from trinkets and T-shirts to fine paintings and jewelry. My host SV (now in her second year at Tibet University) and I take a stroll around and have lunch on the porch of the Gakyiling Restaurant, overlooking the Jokhang and the parade of pilgrims. In a series of coincidences, I run into a dozen or ... read more

Well this was proably the best day of monastery visists I have ever had....we were very fortunate that at Deprung we were able to see the monks chanting, sharing yak butter tea (which stinks and makes you want to gag immediatley) and also reading from their paper thin prayer books. This one has the largest amount of practising monks in Tibet about 700. In Sera monastery (500 monks), we were able to go into a massive courtyard and see monks debating with each other, generally they did it in pairs, one sitting down asking the questions and the other standing up answering them and for a finale they do a big clap (a sort of hong kong fuey chop) hence the pictures will look a little strange, but it was fabulous!! The following day the group ... read more

Luckily for me, two friends on the group tour got up at sunrise as it was about 5c and took my camera off to take photos of the pilgrims and sunrise at Potala Palace so the first three are attributed to Luke and J! After a leisurley breakfast later I headed to the main square in called Barkhor square with the very religous temple at the end called the Jokhang. You do a circumambulation circuit of the temple (always with the temple on your right) along with hundreds of pilgrims. The people here are so friendly, gentle and very welcoming, all it takes is a smile and 'tachi delek' and they really aprreciate it! Yup there are lot's of pictures for me to choose from, I became a bit of a japanese tourist and will have ... read more

Well, its hard to believe but today is our last day in Lhasa. We leave tomorrow morning for Chongqing which is south of Chengdu and the start of the Yangtse river cruise. The past 2 days we just roamed the streets of Lhasa enjoying all the sites. We also found out for $.70 per kilo we could ship all our cold weather gear to Shanghai, so we included a Tibetan horn and a few other misc items... 33 lbs lighter, our packs are back to where they should be @ 20lbs! We spent 2 days in Samye staying at the Samye Monastery guesthouse. We rode the pilgrim bus which was fascinating. The evening was very quiet and we enjoyed just walking around the area. The countryside reminded us of Idaho. Its been nice to see the ... read more

Wow, we are here and it is awesome!! We are sitting at an internet cafe at the YAK hotel. Its high speed connection and as we wade our way through the Chinese Microsoft version, trying to remember which row some of our responses are on, it is a bit hit or miss!! We are on our 4th day here and appear to have adjusted to the altitude (13,000+). We leave on Sunday (Oct 2) for a 9 day trip, 4 days trekking to Everest Base Camp with a Spanish couple. So, we will be back on line @ Oct 12th. We have spent the past days just roaming the streets. There are lots of pilgrims with their prayer wheels in their traditional dress. So far we haven't taken too many photos, but we will once we ... read more