Moving onto Tibet

I met up with my Intrepid group on Sunday night, we are 14 plus our Nepali tour leader, Gopal. All Australians but one Austrian with her aussie boyfriend. Three others were born outside Australia in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and China.

Although it was only a one hour flight it took most of Tuesday to get here due to the all the red tape and  procedure.

We left the Kathmandu hotel at 7.30am for our 10.05am flight. Getting through the Nepali departure procedure took three pat-downs and two luggage scans but at the very new, modern Lhasa airport it took considerably longer and involved numerous passport checks and bag searches. Anyone found carrying a Lonely Planet Tibet guide book had it confiscated – the problem apparently is the preface by the Dalai Lama. I did manage to get mine in undetected inside a jumper under another book.

First impressions of Tibet as we flew over were the huge snow-capped mountains, deep valleys and turquoise blue lakes.

Lhasa  airport is a one hour drive from the city so we saw a little of the valley as we drove in.

Lhasa city was nothing like I imagined, it is not as old and scrupulously clean with uniformed street cleaners on the job sweeping up every leaf and piece of litter daily.

The weather is at last sunshine and blue skies.

We spent our first day getting used to the altitude of 3,900 metres, all suffering a few mild symptoms with some suffering a little more than others.

Our first day began with the ritual circuit of the Jokhang temple and monastery in Barkhor square. Tibetans make this circuitous pilgrimage at least once a day, usually morning or evening, always in a clockwise direction.

Many of them prostrate themselves on the paving in front of the temple for hours on end.

Almost all the older generation carry a spinning prayer wheel and finger their rosary beads as they go. Each temple has a couple of  big incense burning chortens out the front giving it all a mystic (and smoky) atmosphere.

Lhasa has a population of 300,000 of which only about 75,000 to 100,000 are Tibetan, the rest are Chinese nationals relocated here since the cultural  revolution. The big-brother Chinese presence is everywhere with at least five, armed army sentries posted on corners every 400 metres.

In Barkhor Square they even line the rooftops with their guns and cameras trained on the square after an uprising there in 2006.

Naturally it is taboo to photograph them. To be perverse they march anticlockwise around the Jokhang circuit.

On our second day we visited the amazing  Potala Palace, with 1000 rooms, it is huge. To get there was quite a climb up 360 steps, quite a test at this altitude but good preparation for greater heights and stairs to come in the next week.

The red and white palace dominates the skyline in the old quarter of Tibet and an incredible feat of architecture considering it was built in the 7th century.

Till next time