Tibet

I suppose when most people (who are me) think of Tibet they think of Tintin in Tibet and trekking with Llamas (the four legged variety) through snow filled valleys trying not to shout blistering barnacles and setting off avalanches.  It might surprise you to find it this is exactly what it is like.

hohoho..  Lhasa is actually very warm and sunny most of the year (except at night) and our time here was no exception. There isn't really much snow to be seen.  Although there are a lot of mountains.  Unfortunately it's not really possible to do much here without a guide at the moment so mountain exploration is a bit tricky and we stuck to Lhasa and getting swept up in the chanting and prostration.

We got here in the late afternoon on Wednesday and just checking into our hotel and went for a nice dinner at a restaurant called Makye Ame.  This restaurant is famous because apparently the sixth Dalai Lama was a bit of a card and liked to sneak out of palace to kick it with the ladies and this was one of his favoured meeting points.  No cavorting Lamas when we were there though just good food and noxious barley spirit.

After a fitful/crap night of high altitude sleep (we're at 4000m here) we awoke to take our first Kora.  A Kora is a clockwise walk around sacred monuments that Buddhist seem to spend a large portion of their time doing.  There is a prescribed route that the pilgrims follow around a the central part of town (Barkhor) and in the morning and afternoon the route is thronged with pilgrims prostrating themselves, spinning prayer wheels and chanting.  This is one Kora but any such clockwise route around religious artefacts that can include some prostrations is valid.  The starting point to our Kora was the Jokhang Temple which is an incredibly sacred site for the Tibetan Buddhists many of whom have travelled on foot for months prostrating themselves the whole way to see it.  It was nice.

In the afternoon we went to the Sera monastery which has fallen from its heyday of housing around 10,000 to now having around 900.  However they do get involved in some very lively debating.  It's an almost combative affair.  The defender of a particular argument is sits down while the attacker stand and shouts, laughs and even slaps his hands at the defender to try to get him to contradict one of his previous arguments.  This apparently help to promote active thought about the Buddhist teaching rather than simple learning by wrote.  Also the loser has to do chores around the monastery.

Another fitful night saw us ready to conquer Potala Palace.  It's a bit of a whopper but lots of sections are closed to tourists for restoration and preservation. This is where the Dalai Lamas used to live (until the current 14th Dalai Lama exiled himself to India).  It's full of their thrones, statues of their favoured deities (each Dalai had a favourite) and their burial Stupas.  (Mel taking over)