Barkhor street @ Lhasa Tibet

After we have arrived in Lhasa, we were transported to our hotel to rest for the day as it is vital to acclimatise to the high altitude. Will blog something on how to deal with altitude sickness later on (at least that's what I do usually).

We spend the rest of the day loitering around our hotel and the next day headed straight to Barkhor street, one of the major street in Lhasa where most of the temples and tourist spots are located, or in this case, where Jokhang temple located.

Barkhor street had us gawking at the cheap souvenirs and many other stuff that the Chinese can think of. We of course opted for a Tibetan meal since we had a true blue Tibetan who refused to speak Mandarin eventhough he is well versed. I think he is kind of glad that we request the tour be in  English and we glad we opted for a Tibetan guide as we had tonnes of fun along the journey, from his stupid jokes with poker face to us misunderstanding his explanation.

Eventhough it was early in the morning, the street is already packed with tourists and locals. I can't help but notice most of the Tibetans dressed in black and grey.

Sera Monastery, Tibet

Continuation from the debate of the monks...

Before we went to see the debate, we get to walk around the monastery to get a glimpse of the monks life. Since this was considered the first monastery we visited in Tibet, we were pretty excited plus we joined with another group from UK whereby we tried to matchmake their lady tour guide with our tour guide, Jamba. Since Jamba needs to settle our permit for the Everest base camp, we were left with the lady tour guide. And since her English is not as good as our guide, we spend most of the time hiding under the tree from the Tibetan heat and taking photos not knowing the building history. All I can remember from the visit is Sera monastery is one of the few monastery where you can find monks living inside.

Oh, have I not mentioned million times that I love the colour of the sky here. It's so blue...

the courtyard where the debate of the monks took place

one of the halls for prayers

somehow this photo looks like some water colour painting especially the sky

seriously the heat can be really bad

The Debate of the Monks

One of the highlights of my Tibet trip is the debate between the monks in Sera Monastery after the climb up the Potala Palace. We went to the monastery after lunch to catch the debate which starts around 2pm. However we walked around the monastery first before going into the open courtyard for the debate.

Although I don't understand a single word of the debate but it was an eye opening to see so many monks debating at the courtyard in the monastery. Their debates consist of a person standing stamping his foot and shouting to another person who is seated on the ground, who in turn needs to answer the question posed by the person standing, at least that's what being told by my guide. The topics are mostly involved Buddhism. I don't mean to disrespect but I find it rather amusing to see monks jumping, clapping and shouting than to sit and chant all day long.

The Famous Potala Palace @ Tibet

After so many depressing posts, I shall resume some of my happy writing on my travels which seem forever  unfinished. I came to know about the closure of Tibet (yet again) after chatting with my tour guide from Nepal. Yes, we still do keep in touch and he told me that Tibet is closed to tourists again this year. But from the latest news I read, it seems like Tibet has been reopened but not to Britain, Norway, Korea and Australia. I am not sure why is that arrangement but then again the Chinese authority is always doing things that beyond our understanding.

I still remember the day we left Tibet and travelling by land back to Kathmandu through Zhang Mu, we had to go through the immigration and we were travelling with these 3 other tourists from Britain. Our bags were searched while the locals were not. One of the guy travelling in that group actually had a travel guide book on Tibet and it was confiscated because there were Dalai Lama's photos in it. Just because of that! And because of that, I decided to buy a book about the current 14th Dalai Lama in Kathmandu and it's actually written by the Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama himself! I have only managed to read the first few chapters and it's already very interesting. A book where he wrote from his point of view, from he was a young kid selected to be the Dalai until his exile.

We were glad that we had a pure Tibetan as our guide even though they offered a Chinese guide for us. We keep emphasizing that we are Malaysians and not Chinese which was so funny. We had never been so patriotic until then, haha. Our guide mentioned to us that Potala Palace was the residence for the Dalai Lama in the winter while he had another home during summer, the Norbulingka.

waiting in line

On the way up to the Palace and under such thin air, it's very exhausting

This is the last place we can take photos before going in

view from the Palace

Tibetans are the friendliest people I ever met