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The day was spent walking about Lhasa, taking in the sight and the atmosphere. The Tibetan quarters are extremely pleasant and full of happenings. They have all remained pedestrian, with no space for cars. Every street is transformed daily into a street market and nightly into a restaurant and play area. It is filled with pilgrims in their best Tibetan costume, going around the temples on the Bakhor (pilgrims path circling every monastry or temple). It is filled constantly by a contradicting yet happy blurr of sights, smells and sounds.

Views on the Chinese Liberation of Tibet

Degrubenc
2005-12-09 12:57:16

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/>There is a little path consisting of hundreds of prayer wheels going round the main body of the temple. I, unfortunately, turned one of the prayer wheels the wrong way (anti-clockwise); Bene told me it was bad Karma and no sooner had he said so that I fell down, breaking one of my beloved lucky sandals in the process.

After much sadness and recollection of good times spent with those sandals, I moved on barefooted still holding on to them with a sense of desperate hope that they might be ressucitated.

Later, during our wandering of the Jokhang, we are invited to have a chat with some local Tibetan monks in their shaded quarters. One enquires as to the story of my sandals; I describe tearfully the life and close bond I have shared with them and the punishment of unfortunate bad Karma which has sadly disabled my trusted companions. They all take a sad look,
play with the sandals and express their deep pain at my loss but offer little assistance, apart from the promise of a prayer in their memory.

We move on to visit the kitchens of the monastry, in the hope that it may bring back some of my good mood (kitchens have that effect on me). We visit the kitchens but little apart from yak butter tea is being prepared, so my spirits remain low. I make a prayer and offer a donation to the memory of my sandals. Barely had I finished to do so that a monk runs to me with pots of super glue. With unmeasurable joy in our hearts, we surgicaly operate on the sandals and they are given, with the help of the monk community of the temple, a new lease on life.

During the operation, we attracted quite a crowd who was most curious and sympathetic as to the fate of my sandals. We left the temple with a warm heart, among cheers and good whishes of the gathered crowd.

After yet more yak for lunch, we headed to the Potala Palace to visit the thing itself. We arrived a 15:00 and were told that all tickets for

the day were already sold and that we had to come back with passport and Tibet permit at 1600. A short walk in the neigbourhood and a quick look at the monument for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet later, we returned to the Potala Ticket office. 2 hours of queuing awaited us.

After two long hours spent in the too close vicinity of the garbage bins and upon presentation of our various documents, we were issued with a paper filled with colourful stamps giving us permission to buy a ticket for the Potala Palace. We have to return the following day, armed with our permissions, various documents and a lot of patience, to be able to have the huge privilege of buying an overpriced ticket to the palace.

Cursing the inefficiency of the system, we returned to the hotel, had an argument with the travel agent in Beijing for bad services, showered, had dinner in an local Indian restaurant and met up with a mad American who insisted on explaining to me his vision of humankind and religion. It made for an intresting hour in a local Tibetan bar, drinking chang (challenging tibetan beer, served warm, made with barley, millet and rice,
and left to ferment for a few weeks before being dried. It is served in a wooden casket as a powder where you add your desired amount of warm water; water can be added up to 10 times. Cheapest beer I have ever seen but not the most pleasing for a western palate).

We escaped the theories of god and humans to make joyfully to bad Chinese television and to bed.