May 27, 2018
Hotel: Gangjian; Lhasa, China
Met the Americans again at breakfast. I had seen them at Sera monastery yesterday so it seems pretty much all the tours do a similar itinerary. Today we were going to visit Jokhang Temple and Potala Palace. Our driver was late so the guide showed up and had us walk over to the Yak hotel, then another hotel to pick up the others. We had a different guide today for some reason but his English was a bit harder to understand. Turns out he had been living in India for over 20 years and knew Hindi and Tibetian but not Chinese!
The Jokhang Temple is the heart of Old Lhasa and considered the most sacred in Tibet. Though there is now a Burger King located across the square so I guess that detracts a bit. You have to go through a metal detector/xray when entering the pedestrian area. Worshippers walk clockwise around the temple, prostrating themselves on the street, getting back up and doing it all over again. They do this for hours at a time. Some were wearing kneepads and hand protectors. There was also a fairly heavy police presence here. We did the circuit around the temple and our guide pointed out a building where a former Dalai Lama had spent a lot of time, supposedly it was a bar and the waitress looked like his mother. Or that's what our guide said anyway.
The temple itself was crazy crowded inside but again had amazing artwork and butter lamps, etc. So many Buddhas, past, present and future. We walked to the Tibetian Family Restaurant for lunch but they were closed. Then another restaurant was closed as well, so ended up back at the Yak Hotel for lunch. A nice restaurant though and I just had to try a yak burger.
Yak burger
Our entry time for the Potala Palace was for 2PM, and you only have 1hr to go through. We still got there early so had a bit of a walk in the park across from the Palace. We started the climb up about 1:30, moof so many steps. The palace is about 200' higher than the valley and at 12000' you feel every one of those steps! We made it in time though and went through several rooms in the palace including former Dalai Lamas waiting rooms and audience halls.
It was just starting to rain as we came out the other side for the (easier) walk down the hill. The driver was stuck in traffic somewhere and when he eventually showed up the minibus wouldn't hold all of us! They had to send the Brit couple back to a hotel in the taxi, supposedly they were leaving tomorrow so I didn't get to say goodbye. The guide had mentioned a cultural show that evening and the Chinese girl was able to book discount tickets for three of us using an app on her phone!
Back to the hotel where I had a few hours free before meeting the others for dinner. Tomorrow we would be going to Shigatse and I wanted to find my boutique hotel, it was a few blocks away in the streets of Old Lhasa. I'd marked it on my GPS but when I got there it was an empty block full of rubble!! I had passed their sister hotel so went back there and they were able to lead me to the right place, whew!
From there I wandered back to Barkhor Square circuit. It's just an amazing place to people watch with locals spinning prayer wheels and sitting on benches, tourists all mingling together. The streets are surrounded with shops selling souvenirs. I walked around the circuit a few times until it was time to head to Tibetian Family Kitchen for dinner. The food was excellent and we ordered way too much. Our guide was tired (he had just come in from EBC the day before) and bowed out of going to the culture show but arranged a taxi that would take us to the theater and wait for us.
The show was actually in a huge open-air theater on the southern side of town. Very busy and it was mostly Chinese tourists. Our guide had said something about wearing coats and we saw lots of people wearing these thick jackets. Our seats were in the VIP section with a good view. The performance really was amazing, telling the story of a Chinese princess traveling to marry a Tibetian king. Hundreds of performers, elaborate set changes, and even live yaks and galloping horses. Then came the part about crossing the Tibetian plateau in winter and they actuall made snow fall in the audience! Not much fell where we were but the seats in front of us got very cold! Quite an elaborate production.
