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Published: November 23rd 2005
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Another day, another temple. Yesterday the most sacred one, this time the biggest one in the country (well, the Autonomous Region of Tibet).
We head off early to Drepung Monastery, a very large complex about 10kms out of the city. It is an impressive sight: it looks like a very large village, all built in the same style and clearly designed to impress. The inside is impressive but slightly repetitive; we counted 17 chapels and prayer rooms, all looking terribly alike.
It used to be the seat of the Dalai-Lama, before he had it moved to the Potala Palace in 1655. It also used to host the largest university in the country: there were up to 10,000 monks and disciples within its walls at its hight. The monastery has suffered surprisingly little from the Cultural Revolution: its 2000 monks were dispersed and re-educated but the buildings and art work remained untouched. There are now about 500 monks, in what seems to be an oversized city, nearly a phantom one. The visit was most interesting but, as I mentionned before, touching on the repetitive. The most exciting part of it was finding a truck to take us back in town.
Yak Momos (sort of steamed dumplings) and a bowl of noodles later we approached the dreaded ticket office to the Potala Palace. After yet another queue, we are lucky enough to get tickets for the same day and even at the time we wanted it. We sadly cannot take the main steps in front of the palace but have to take the side road, round the back. We feel like thiefs sneaking in un-announced.
The Chinese have brought to an end the religious importance of the palace but, with its 13 floors, 118 meters high facades and thousand windows, it still is a most impressive sight. 7ooo workers and 1500 artists were required for its construction. 300,000 tons of bronze were sunk in its foundations to help it resist earthquakes.
With all those figures in mind, the visit was thoroughly disapointing: we saw very little of the palace, a few chapels, the stupas of the Dalai-Lamas and an inner courtyard. That was it. We could not go to the roof, could not see the appartments of the Dalai-Lama, could not even see the kitchens...
After the visit, we took the pilgrim way round the palace -
where I turned every single prayer wheel (about 2000 of them) in order to achieve good Karma for the rest of my trip.
The pilgrims' way ended in the market of the city: it was very well supplied with vegetables of all sorts and meat displayed, as usual, in it crudest form.
The intresting part of the market was undoubtedly the poultry area: there are large amount of chickens, ducks and pigeons stuffed in small wire cages. We witnessed the sad end of a pigeon: he was first drowned in a big pool of water ( I imagined that his head would get chopped off but no luck), he was then dipped into boilling water which allowed his feathers to be removed easily.
In the evening we decided to break the Yak momotony and go for a Korean restaurant. It was a BBQ yourself type of thing.
As we were eating, the monsoon started outside and it rained very heavily. A poor Tibetan took shelter in front of our window and started looking with envy at our food. He seemed hungry, so we invited him in to share the huge portions we had ordered. He seemed
happy and we had a jolly conversation. He had long black hair, all rolled up on top of his head and held in place with a red turban. We inquired as to its meaning, (we had seen black ones and red ones before, in town). He explained to us that it was typical for his region of Tibet. He was a proud chap, ate, drunk his beer, bade us a fond farewell and went happy in the pouring rain to his next adventure.
We were not quite as brave as that chap and made for the nearest bar in order to escape the rain.
We were then invited by a group of happy Chinese to join their drinking session. It was a painful experience: they drunk beer in shot glasses, a Chinese custom to which neither Bene nor I can possibly adhere. The problem was that the glass had to be emptied at every toast (and there were a lot).
They informed us of the Chinese traditions in Tibet, the first of which is that Tibet belongs to China. Another tradition is that they like Germany because of the war and Hitler, but they dislike the Japanese.
We quickly made our good-byes and went a few doors down. We opened the door and walked in a hair dresser, not paticularily intent on cutting our hair but rather on selling us his girls. Yet again, we left in a hurry and ended up next door, at a computer and parts repair shop. After this third unsucsessful attempt, we decided to protect all our valuables in a plastic bag and take the rain as it came.
A most exhilarating feeling, we were entirely soaked within seconds, the streets turned into rivers but we splashed water at each other like five year-old kids to the greatest entertainment of the locals.
After all this fun and excitement, we could not possibly go to bed (after all, it is a saturday evening) so, after a bit of searching, we found a chinese bar with live music. It turned out to be a farmers ball: heavy chinese boys uneasily dancing with equally heavy chinese matrons, to the sound of cringeable chinese music.
This state of affairs proved entertaining for a while but we soon realised that, if you did not have a minimum of 20 cans of Budweiser on
the table, you were not regarded as cool. Feeling decidedly uncool amongst this crowd, we promptly left under the repeated assaults of a particularily scary looking matron who insisted on dancing with Bene. In place of this tempting invite, we found a massage parlor, a real one for once.
For the modest sum of 150 yuans, we were undressed, washed, baked, scrubed, rubbed with salt, boiled alive, furiously malaxed, folded into small pieces and thrown unceremoniously on a large chair in a room filled with rows and rows of equally large chairs, given the opportunity to watch on wide screen Real Madrid play Beijing Hunday, given the reward of a beer and we promptly fell asleep at the hands of a pretty girl giving us a foot massage.
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cmthomas
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Great blogs, Chris. Keep 'em coming!