May 26, 2018
Hotel: Gangjian; Lhasa, China
I kept waking up through the night, even with melatonin for jetlag. Probably a side effect of the altitude as well. I took some ibuprofen for the headaches. The guide wasn't supposed to pick us up until after 9AM. In the lobby I heard some other tourists complaining about the hotel! It was just your basic Chinese-style hotel, nothing swish but not bad either. I went to breakfast about 8:30 or so, the room was full of other tourists. I met an American couple who were living in Okinawa and the woman from the bus last night, all three were in the same group going to Kathmandu. Breakfast wasn't much to speak of so all I had was a few boiled eggs and fruit juice.

My guide finally shows up and we go around to other hotels picking up the others in my group. A couple of Brits, a Spanish guy and a Chinese/Finnish couple, so only 6 of us today. The tour plan changed and we would visit Drepung and Sera monasteries today. The Drepung monastery is on the western outskirts of Lhasa and is the largest in Tibet. We walked up some steps (pant pant) past the incence burners. Visited several of the temples there which are still very much in use by local worshippers. Unfortunately they don't allow photos inside the inner chambers, but they were amazingly decorated with Buddha and Lama statues, lit dimly with butter lamps. Locals made offerings of 5 jiao notes (roughly $0.75) and butter for the lamps. I had been to Bhutan previously so some decoration was similar but the temples here were much busier. We climbed up the hill to see the platform where they unroll the thanka (tapestry) during religious festivals. I was ahead of everyone till my energy ran out!


Potala Palace


Drepung Monastery




Drepung monastery


After leaving the monastery we went to lunch near Sera monastery. We arrived after the other groups had already eaten up the food so we had to wait while they prepped more. And wasn't too impressed with the food, barely tepid hot dogs and greens.

Sera Monastery was our next stop. They had some preserved mandalas (sand paintings) in one of the buildings but you had to pay an extra 10Y to take photos. The mandalas take several weeks to make and are destroyed immediately on completion.. showing the impermanence of things. Another room at the monastery had old books. The highlight of the visit though was seeing the debating monks. It's quite an active scene with monks yelling and slapping their hands and feet to debate points of scripture. It's like a final exam to graduate to the next level. The courtyard was surrounded with Western tourists, you can't use cameras but oddly you can use your phone.

Mandala




Debating monks, Sera Monastery

After getting dropped back off at the hotel and paying the balance of my tour I still really wasn't feeling hungry so just went to sleep instead.