I don't know whether the terrible night's sleep was due to indigestion from the yak BBQ I had for dinner or the altitude or delayed jetlag or what, but I was thoroughly exhausted waking up this morning. I even fell asleep on a table over lunch. There is also only one time zone in China, which means that I even though I woke up at 6ish, crack of dawn was still hours away. Anyway, we got up and basically watched the sunrise over the Potala from our hostel's roof, while below the police loaded themselves into their armored personnel carriers and the garbage trucks collected the garbage to the incongruous bleeping electronic tune of happy birthday to call people to bring their garbage out. (And I wonder if Chinese tourists to America write emails back to friends in China saying they sing each other the garbage song on birthdays in America). Overlooking the the city were plumes of smoke and I wondered momentarily if there were riots or fires in the old quarters, but realized it was plumes of incense smoke drifting up from braziers on the pilgrim circuit as pilgrims tossed juniper and barley in by the fistful, and lending the city a sweet, if suffocating smell.
We headed down and wandered a bit around the Barkhour circuit- an ancient pilgrimage circle weaving through ancient alleyways around the Jokhang temple, the holiest site in Tibet, (the Vatican of Tibetan Buddhism I suppose you could say) with all the hundreds of pilgrims and prostraters (and definitely no protesters). Many wore pads on their hands, leather aprons with rubber reinforcements and even reinforced shoes to protect themselves from the hundreds or thousands of full body prostrations they made around the temple, their foreheads bleeding and filthy and bodies surely weary by the day's. Many held out their aprons for pilgrims to stuff money into to earn merit for their reincarnation. There was even a man with one leg who we saw in the morning and then again later in the day, still at it making his way around doing full prostrations. The circuit and temple were packed with pilgrims from all over, with traditional yak wool smocks, brightly colored yarn braided into the hair of both men and women, and somewhat incongruous but ubiquitous cowboy hats. There were also dozens of feral lapdogs in the procession, yes, Lhasas and Pekingese, adorable if a bit shaggy, but likely rabid. The people here in Tibet are also also consistently genuinely friendly and curious, very soft spoken and, not to be creepy, but Tibet easily has the highest percentage of beautiful women I've seen in any country, even Colombia.
We then entered the Jokhang itself, jostling our way through claustrophobia inducing crowds in the tiny medieval corridors thick with smoke and lit only by yak butter lamps. Many pilgrims had purchased thermoses of melted yak butter to add to the lamps as offerings as they muttered prayers over the flickering lamps. The smoke stained murals of demons and boddhisatvas combined with the smell of incense, sounds of chanting and throngs of traditionally dressed pilgrims really felt like something out of a fairytale storybook stereotype of "Mystical Tibet." Of course, the obnoxious hordes of Chinese tourists didnt allow the feeling to last, and the greasy-with-spilled-yak-butter floors also made it critical to focus on watching your step.
Our guide/minder was unfortunately not very helpful in his broken English, and there was also that awkward and uncomfortable interactions that can happen sometimes when travelling where one know more (factually speaking) about certain cultural sights and such than the locals (actually Tsetse I'm pretty sure that's the fifth century, not the twelfth century...). And what is up with my terrible habit of speaking back to people with accents in accented broken English right back to them, as if they can understand me better. Yes, yes- tomorrow go with taxi Potala Palace? Ugh. it makes me feel like such an ugly American...
The afternoon was spent at Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama's somewhat run down summer palace, parts of which we couldn't visit because there were pictures of him there, and yet some wonderful gardens and lakes to wander around and relax, kind of what I'd hoped the forbidden city would be but wasn't. There was also an amazing broken English explanation of the place, that I tried to photograph here.
From there onto another temple, Sera, the second largest monastery, once home to almost 7000 monks, then none after '59, now back to about a tenth its former size and slowly rebuilding itself as evidenced by the tittering girls pushing around wheelbarrows full of cement. Admittedly, by this point the statues and stupas were starting to blur together as temple fatigue started to set in, but the grounds themselves were breezy and pleasant for a stroll until we came to the courtyard of the debating monks. We sat in a circle as young monks drilled each other on questions of theology and Tibetan history, demanding answers with a sharp stomp of the foot and clap of the hand, almost like a baseball pitcher's windup. Near-full-contact academic debate, which, in spite of understanding no Tibetan beyond "Teshe Delek" (hello) was extremely amusing.
Now for a stroll around town and some dinner. Oh, and today's best Chinglish? Well Simpsons fans, I'm not making this up but a shirt that read "Nestle Chocelate Malk."
POTALA PALACE:
I'm writing from an internet cafe, in fact the only internet cafe in Lhasa and what advertises iself as "the best toilet in Tibet." And from what I've seen so far I'd have to agree, though still amazing that you can't flush toilet paper in the best toilet in Tibet. Its also packed with white people, the most we've seen- there are probably no more than a hundred or so in all of Lhasa right now.
So today was a trip out to the Drepong monastery- largest in Tibet and nicknamed the rice pile due to it's extensive rambling of white buildings and temples on the side of a mountain. Very cool and just unique enough to not feel exactly like all the other temples which do start to blur. From there it was down to the Potala Palace, well down and then very much up, the 300 year old hilltop palace of the last nine Dalai Lamas, until thee 14th fled in '59. First of was the obligatory photogrpah with a Chinese tour group, before entering- not as bad as the photo taking and stares in India though. (see blog 7/08) Maybe we should rent ourselves out though -seems to be good money in it...
Kinda an eerie feeling walking through the Dalai Lama's bedroom, his alarm clock still next to his bed where he left it 50 years ago and now and has been unable to return, yet I can shuffle through with dozens of Chinese tourists and gawk. His bedroom window also now looks out on what used to be a village and now is a massive communist style monument to the 'liberation' of the Tibetan people by the PLA. And let it be noted too that the top of the palace flies a positively MASSIVE Chinese flag, lest there be some confusion. Not to mention the fact that possessing a Tibetan flag can get you arrested.
Interestingly however, the 50yuan note, second most valuable banknote in China, has the Potala on the back. I feel in some ways that this sums up the complicated relationship between the so called Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Peoples Republic. Not just that it's about money, but the cultural exploitation for money is part of the irony given the busloads of Chinese tourists. On the one hand, it suggests that china values Tibetan culture enough to prominently display, and to not completely destroy this place as very nearly happened during the cultural revolution ( and did happen to 3000+ temples in Tibet). And yet such a display also sends an undisputable message that Tibet is a part of the People's Republic. I can only wonder what the Tibetan people feel about this- pride, conflicted, resentment? I'd ask but I can't - you never know who could be listening... Okay, enough philosophizing.
But the palace was cool- amazing in fact, countless temples with solid gold 3D mandalas and gold leaf stupas, 40 ft Buddhas and boddhisatvas, as well as the red and black faced demons who are the Buddhas protectors, (Varjapani and Hayagriva) a meditation cave, and over 1000 rooms, of which we got to see about 20. It did feel somewhat sterile though- Chinese guards, no incense and chanting and missing the vibrant lived-in feeling of the monasteries that have been coming back.
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