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Published: December 18th 2007
Sera Monastery
Living quarters of the lamasIn this summer, I and my family had a trip going to Tibet and the Yangtze River (the Three Gorges). We had been to Lhasa and around, and Shigatse, after which flew to Chongqing to board a cruise ship all the way down to Yichang. This entry is about the first part of our travel in Tibet.
Originally, our plan was to take a train from Xining to Lhasa. However, after some research and visiting a few travel agents in Shenzhen, we were convinced that getting a train ticket from Xining would be one of the most difficult tasks in the Chinese tour industry now. This is because people from all over the country flooded to try the new Qinghai-Tibet Railways which has just been operating for a year. As a result, we chose to fly both ways. We found ourselves having made the right decision after our arrival in Lhasa, as our travel agent told us that trying to get a train ticket invovles paying a commision fee of more than CNY 1000. Even with that, it does not guarantee one to get a ticket from Xining.
Before our departure, we were to different extents worried about the
Lhasa Street
Our first sight of the Potala High Attitude Sickness (HAS). So we brought with us an anti-HAS drug, Diamox. There is also a Chinese version, called Hongjingtian (紅景天), which is a kind of traditional medicine and is sold everywhere in Tibet. To help ease our worries, the flying route we chose was Guangzhou to Lhasa with a intermediate stop in Zhondian, which has an elevation of 3200m, comparaed with Lhasa's 3700m. We hoped the stop in Zhongdian could allow us to get used to the thin air before we actually set foot in Tibet. At the end, however, we had various levels of reactions. I got a headace after finishing the first day's tour. The worst case was with my dad who had some pain over his chest. I think this HAS is not to be overlooked, because reports of travellers dying are heard of. We became self-conciously slow-motioned when we arrived, just to help us feel better (psychologically maybe).
Back to the sightseeing. We hired a local tour company to take us around Lhasa as well as to Shigatse. This seemed to be the only viable option for us because only the tour companies can get tickets to the Potala without involving queueing up
in the midnight, which would be the last thing we wanted. It sounded ridiculous, but everyday, only 2300 individual visitors (i.e. not going through the tour companies) are allowed in and every ticket has one's ID number on it to prevent it from being resold. Our tour finally started when everything was organised. (But not all were organised at first--the hotel we booked on the internet was so crap that we had an argument with them and then went to another hotel which was better. Believe it or not, at the better hotel, our rent was actually lower).
In the first day, we went to the Drepung Monastery, Sera Monastery and the Norbulingka. Drepung is one of the three most important Gelugpa monasteries (along with Sera and Ganden) west of Lhasa. It was founded in 1416 by a disciple of Tsongkhaba and was the seat of the early Dalai Lamas until the fifth built the Potala. Today, there are a few hundred lamas residing in the monastery, and the place is divided into a main assembly hall and a few colleges where the lama's studying takes place.
As with Drepung Monastery, Sera Monastery is a Gelugpa monastery founded
Drepung Monastery
Rock Carving and the Thangka Wall by another disciple of Tsongkhaba in the 1400s. We visited mainly the Je College, where, on our day of visit, there was a crowd of pilgrims from other parts of Tibet waiting to worship in the most sacred chapel in Sera. The pilgrims bring with them yak-butter, which is sort of expensive in the mountains, to fuel the lamps inside the chapels. One cannot help but notice how devoted the Tibetans are to their religion. Finally, Norbulingka was the summer palace of the Dalai Lamas, and was built by 7th Dalai Lama in 1755. We visited the palaces of the 8th, 13th and 14th Dalai Lamas.
The second day was our highlight as we visited the Jokhang (大昭寺) and the Potala. Jokhang is the most sacred religious building in Tibet and dates back to its foundation in 7th Century when Songtsen Gampo wanted to house a buddhist image brought to Tibet by Princess Bhrikuti from Nepal. It is said that Princess Wencheng (文成公主), another wife of Songtsen Gampo, had chosen the site which was a lake and legends had it that the lake was filled by a sacred goat. Later, a Buddha image, at his age of 12, (Jowo
Drepung Monastery
Entrance to one of the Colleges Sakyamuni) brought to Tibet by Wencheng was housed in Jokhang, for which the name Jokhang came. It is the most revered Buddha image in Tibet, and its chapel is located centrally in the temple.
Surrounding the Jokhang is the Barkhor pilgrimage circuit, where pilgrims circle the temple in a clockwise direction (Everything in Tibet goes clockwise). When we approached the area, we could see many of them worshiping to the Jokhang with their whole bodies laying on the ground in intervals (in Chinese, 五體投地). Our guide said some of these pilgrims were hiking from far away places to Lhasa in this way. There were just too many people wanting to enter the Jokhang, both pilgrims and tourists, and it was unfortunate this way because once we had managed to enter the temple (which was difficult with the crowds), all we could see was people and we were unable to look clearly at the chapels. The only relief was when we came to the roof, where a distant view of the Potala was offered.
The Potala was the former seat of the Dalai Lamas and is the highest structure in Lhasa. It is said that the site of the
present Potala was once the palace of Songtsen Gampo in the 7th Century, but the current structure was founded by the fifth Dalai Lama in the 1600s when he moved his seat of government from the Drepung Monastery to the Potala. Entering the Potala involves an identity check as the ID numbers of the visitors are recorded on the tickets. However, when we arrived, we was not checked but was taken by a Tibetan lady direct to the security (everyone is X-rayed). Our theory for this is that our tour company was unable to get tickets via the "normal" channel, as admission to the Potala is in high demand. Instead, we thought they used the backdoor (i.e. guanxi--anyone familiar with this country should know about this). Anyway, we were glad that we managed to get in without any trouble.
From the doors of in the courtyard, which we entered, to the palaces were three flights of outdoor stairs. Actually, in terms of height, they were not that tall (around 150m) or steep. But as we found out later, climbing these stairs was not as easy as it seemed--possibly because of the thin air plus the strong sunshine, we took
a great effort to climb up. At the top, we were led to the White Palace, which was the living quarters of the 13th and 14th Dalai Lamas. After visiting the White Palace, we entered the Red Palace, which is the hightlight of the Potala. Visitors are allowed to visit about 20 Lhakangs, or chapels, spread among three floors of the Red Palaces. Travelling between these floors invovles climbing up and down some steep,narrow and dark stairs, and we thought it was dangerous. Nevetheless, we enjoyed visiting the chapels, which were mainly for religous purposes and had many Buddhist figures. On the ground floor, there was a large assembly hall. Next to it was the Chapel of the Dalai Lamas' Tombs, which houses the chortens of a few Dalai Lamas. Among them, that of the fifth Dalai Lama, 14m-high, has some 3700kg of gold with it. Our guide joked that one sees more precious metal and jewellery here in one day than in other times in his entire life. Unfortunately, there was a time limit for group visitors (such as us) to stay in the White and Red Palaces altogether. To be precise, that limit is 53 minutes, and if
anyone is found staying longer than that, his or her guide will be fined. As a result, our visit to the highlights of the Potala was in a hurry, and we thought it was a pity.
Having toured in and around Lhasa, our next destination was Shigatse, which is 6 hours' drive up the Yarlu Tsangpo River. The main reason to go to Shigatse was to visit the Tashihunpo Monastery, the seat of Panchen Lama. On our way to Shigatse, we encountered one interesting thing we had never seen before: speed limit on the highway by the police. This was not radar or speed camera! Instead, when we entered the highway, our driver was given a piece of paper which had the time on it. The rule is that one needs to stay for a certain amount of time (say 2 hours) between checkpoints on the highway, thus the incentive for speeding is removed--as you cannot arrive earlier. Clever, isn't it? But the fact was that everyone was speeding and then stopped just before the checkpoints. Results: 1) speed limit was not achieved; 2) everyone's time was wasted.
Anyway, we arrived safely in Shigatse late in the afternoon,
Sera Monastery
Praying wheels and we proceeded direct to the Tashihunpo Monastery. The monastery was founded in 1447 by a disciple of Tsongkhapa, and later became the seat of the Panchen Lamas, Tibet's number two spiritual leaders who once ruled the western part of Tibet where Shigatse is located. The sights in Tashihunpo include a 26m high statue of the Future Buddha, and the gold-plated chortens (tombs) of the 10th, 4th and 5th to 9th (in one chorten, due to destructions in the Cultural Revolution) Panchen Lamas. As we approached the courtyard, we could also see a gathering of the lamas who seemed to be preparing for a debate.
We travelled back to Lhasa the next day. On our way, we had a detour to Kamba-la, a 4794m-high pass which overlooks the Yamdrok Tso (Lake). This is the highest point on earth that all of us have been to so far, and we were excited about this. However, we seemed to have different levels of attitude sickness so we actually did not have the mood to stay long. Moreover, unfortunately, there was fog up in the pass, and as a result, we could not see the lake at all.
That is pretty
much about our travel in Tibet. We then flew to Chongqing to continue our journey on the Yangtze River. I will have another blog entry for that.
Some thoughts about Tibet and its people here. First, the physical environment is rough, but people have survived there since the begining of time. In fact, they did not simply survive, but left a rich culture whose influence extends to as far as Mongolia. Second, one cannot doubt the importance of religion in the lives of the Tibetan people and their devoutness involved. There are pilgrims all around and some of them are doing their pilgrimages in suffering ways that few outsiders would understand. I don't know if there is any link between points 1 and 2, but to find a simple explanation to either is, to me, no easy task. Maybe, as it is taught in Buddhism, when one abandons his desires and devouts to his faith, there will be peace no matter what the environment looks like.
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