The Potala Palace, the most famous attraction in Lhasa. After a stressful wait for the train I had two long days on a train. Its the highest train journey in the world at one point reaching 4000m above sea level. Each morning I awoke to the sight of a different mountain range and shed loads of snow!! Although we did keep zipping in and out of tunnels which meant for less photos but I guess its why it takes two days not two weeks!
Due to my stupidity I didn't pack any food for the trip so train food was on the menu, I didn't exactly have high hopes expecting something like plane food but it was actually really good, got loads of rice some meat and the best tofu I have had so far, no complaints here.
Along with mountains and some lakes the other dominant sight was yaks, there was like a billion I wander who eats all these yaks because it is not popular in china as far as I can gather it's a tibetan thing, well getting here you understand how, fancy some yak ice cream? A yak dumpling? How about just a straight up slab of yak?
Lhasa train station was strangley empty, especially compared to any chinese station! it was nice. Lhasa means god land or land of god and to be fair it's pretty close to him on the top of the world.
Lhasa seems to be struggling with its buddhist roots and devout religious population and the influx of commercialism. The tibetans themselves are much nicer in generall and its much pleasant to walk the streeets here. People smile and say hello to you! I was even given a silk scarf by a old guy who just nodded smiled and walked on, the beard has mystical powers. Aparently these scarves are a sign of respect and you see them in every temple here. Then I went to the potala palace (the most famous in tibet).
A concern before leaving was the altitude as the oxgyen is so thin that people get ill and they cant do things, luckly it has not effected me too much. However when your visiting temples which are built into or up small mountians and the air gets thinner, your walking up a million steps and the oxygen in the air is being burnt with incense and this fake butter breathing seems to be less of a priority than praying. Dali lamas get amazing coffins too, it sounds morbid but one who died at 13 has a coffin made from 500kg of gold plus diamonds etc, and that is not even the biggest one. I think the 13th was pretty important because he kept being mentioned and well his tomb was 3000kg of gold plus diamonds rubys turquoises and a pearl from the brain of an elephant!
Finally I got some yak meat, and it was lovely much better than beef although I think I have had enough to last me a lifetime! I am enjoying being in the presence of so many monks so after visting a couple temples I got to watch them ‘debating’. From what I could gather the guy standing up asks a question and then claps his hand (louder for the more important/harder the question I think) and then the monk sitting down answers. And so the adventure into the tibetan capital comes to a close as I fly back to chengdu in order to climb mount emei shan tommorrow. also the captions are screwed up on the pictures again.
Source: travelblog.org
http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/6804346.pdf
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