Potala Palace

I'm finally forcing myself to do the last post from our Tibet trip and probably the last post about our year in China. So here it is: the Potala Palace, home of the Dalai Lama (who isn't living there at the moment, obviously). The palace towers over Lhasa; you can see it easily from the heart of the city. No pictures were allowed inside, so I can only show you the outside. I don't really have the heart to go into detail (is our trip really over??), so I'll just say this: If you go to Lhasa, you can't miss the Potala Palace.







Next up: Road trip! We're heading out to New England this week for some house-sitting and hopefully some sightseeing--Boston and Philly are on the short list, and New York is a must (as always). We're still trying to figure out how to maintain a home here in the States while still exploring the world...no extended stays abroad are on the horizon at the moment, but I'm hoping to do a nice big trip to South America in the fall. Stay tuned!

Jokhang Temple

So I didn't quite get everything Tibet posted before the new year, but there are only a couple more things to write about. They're both pretty awesome--the Jokhang Temple and the Potala Palace.

Front right side of the temple.

Our first day back in Lhasa, we went to the Jokhang. We'd seen it almost every day since it's in the heart of the Old Town, but now we were finally entering the most sacred temple in Tibet. The inner part was built in the seventh century by King Songtsan Gampo, who united Tibet and then some way back when. In addition to his Tibetan wives, he took a Nepali wife and a Chinese wife. Each wife brought a statue and had a temple built to house the statue. The Jokhang was built by the Nepalis, and the inner parts have beautiful carvings in the Nepali style. Somewhere along the way, though, the statues got switched, so the Jokhang is now home to the Chinese wife's statue--the Jawo Buddha.

In front of the temple there are huge incense burners where they burn juniper branches, and there are tons of people performing full-body prostrations. Tibetans make the pilgrimage from all over, so the temple seems to be packed pretty much all the time.

Full-body prostrations along the front right side.

Juniper branches burning. The center of the temple with the black banners is the entrance.

There are lots of small chapels, which all looked the same to us, so after awhile we got out of the slow, long line of pilgrims and tried to find the Jawo Buddha. Of course, once we got out of the line, it was hard to get back in because it was so packed. An old woman who was chanting and spinning her prayer wheel in front of the room with the statue took pity on us and shoved us in the line.

Entrance to the inner sanctum (no pictures allowed past that point).

The Buddha itself isn't very big, especially compared to some of the Buddhas we've seen that are multiple stories high. He sits in a giant throne that takes up almost the whole room, and as people file by, they touch their foreheads to the two sides of the throne. There's a monk on each side to keep things moving along because seeing this Buddha is so overwhelming for some people--it's the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. The monks must see a lot of clueless foreigners; they took our heads and touched them to the throne for us!

In a way, we felt like intruders, especially considering how difficult it is for many Tibetans to make the pilgrimage and what a sacred experience it is for them. But I'm not sorry we went...for one thing, huge tour buses come through all the time and it doesn't seem to bother the Tibetans. For another, the energy is just incredible there. You're in this dark, ancient temple with people praying and crying everywhere and the floors are slippery with oil from the yak butter lamps and the walls are black with soot...it was one of the most incredible temples we've ever been to (and believe me, we've seen many!).

After seeing the Buddha, we headed to the temple roof, which has a great view of the Barkhor. It was great to come out of the small, dark, intense interior to the openness and sunlight on the roof. We hung out for awhile, just soaking up Lhasa.

Up on the roof.

For more pictures, check out Wikipedia's entry on the Jokhang. It has a nice picture of the front of the temple so you can see the whole thing, and it even has a picture of the Jawo Buddha.

Acclimatizing in Lhasa

Another factor that makes travel to Tibet somewhat difficult is the altitude. It's difficult to tell who will get sick, but almost everyone feels the effects of being at 3,900 meters (12,800 feet). It's recommended that travelers spend a few days acclimatizing in Lhasa before venturing out to even higher altitudes, so of course that's what we did. We arrived Friday night and spent all of Saturday and Sunday just hanging out and making the arrangements for our trip to Everest. Most people should be pretty well adapted after three nights, and we felt pretty good by then.

There are certain things you can do to help aid your adaptation. The main things are to drink tons of water and to avoid overexerting yourself. We drank 3-4 liters of water a day and didn't do much of anything other than plan our excursion into the countryside and walk around the Barkhor.

Barkhor square (from the roof of the Jokhang).

The Barkhor circuit is the heart of Lhasa (and hence Tibet). Pilgrims come from all over Tibet and China to walk the Barkhor circuit around the Jokhang temple (more on that later). Sellers line the circuit, so it's also the main market. The sheer number of pilgrims is overwhelming, and fortunately they absorb any Han Chinese and non-Chinese tourists, so it's easy to get swept up in the energy. Everyone travels counterclockwise around the circuit, and let me tell you, it's pretty hard to go the other way!

Don't even think about going clockwise!

Most pilgrims carry prayer wheels when they follow the cicuits. Prayer wheels have prayers inside, and as the pilgrims walk, they spin the wheel (counterclockwise, naturally), which sends the prayer to heaven. Some people also pray over mala beads.

The man in the white hat is spinning a prayer wheel
(click on the picture to enlarge it).

Fortunately we didn't have any real problems adjusting to the altitude. We definitely felt a little lightheaded when we first got off the train, although some of that was probably giddiness at arriving! We both had a little insomnia (which was taken care of with Tylenol PM) and mild headaches at night, and we felt pretty tired most of the time, but we had no major symptoms. We did start to get a little bored trying to take it easy, though, so by the time Monday rolled around we were pretty excited to get out of town and head out to Everest.