The flight route from Kathmandu to Lhasa takes you past the Himalayas… you just look out your window and there they are – it is quite spectacular. On the flight there was no announcement and the air hostess hadn’t a clue (I asked) so we were a bit confused and not sure if we’d actually seen Everest. Suzanne did attempt to ask the man sitting beside us if he was a frequent flyer on this route and therefore knew if we saw it to which he replied “snow mountain”! On the return journey the pilot actually announced as we past by that Everest was within our view so the good news is I had photographed it on the way out and here we were again looking at it on the way back!
Lhasa is a beautiful airport to arrive into. After the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu there was a calmness on the roads and clean fresh air to breath. The airport is surrounded by hills and is basically in the countryside and it’s about an hour drive to the city. Although it’s referred to as The Autonomous Region of Tibet it became very clear, very quickly that we were in China (but more on that later)
Lhasa sits at over 3,600 metres above sea level and you can feel it (or at least I could) as soon as you walk out into the air… a strange thing and I haven’t found out if there’s anything scientific to explain this, is that I felt the urge to laugh.. in fact giggle almost hysterically.. everything seemed extra funny. Anyhoo…. when we came through the military style security check we were greeted by Jason, a young trainee tour guide who was sent to pick us up as our main guide for the next few days was busy. He put white scarves around our necks and wished us “good luck and happiness”. Later we were to see these scarves all over the temples in Tibet. As we loaded into the car and headed on our journey to the city It became apparent that Jason had very little English. He had a beautiful smile whenever we asked him a question but he only had 2 responses.. “yes yes” and “very beautiful”. As we drove through the countryside we saw local houses and what looked like farming communities and the odd monastery type looking building and we asked Jason “what’s that” to which he responded “very beautiful”… and again later “what’s that” and again with a giant smile “yes yes very beautiful”… whether it was the altitude or just the situation I could not stop laughing and we giggled away to ourselves in the back of the car! As we started to approach Lhasa the landscape changed – still surrounded by the beautiful hills and mountains, a large amount of construction was evident with high rise apartment blocks in rows appearing out of nowhere. It seemed very out of place to the countryside we’d just come through. Clear evidence of the Chinese development plans for the region….
Our hotel, Saikang Hotel was in a great location on the main road that led to the Potala palace one way and the old town the other. There were a number of things we noticed when we walked into the hotel.. the first was that there was a huge model of apartment blocks in the foyer which seemed very out of place but it became clear that this was a plan for the development of what the locals called “new Lhasa” and this hotel was not Tibetan run but Chinese run. The 2nd thing of note was the number of ashtrays around and the smell of smoke … although honestly we didn’t see a whole lot of smoking it’s allowed in hotels, restaurants and bars and I counted 3 ashtrays in our room (quickly removed as those of you who know me well can imagine!!).
The other thing we noticed immediately was the number of staff – there were dozens of young girls and boys (ok I know, I know that’s patronising and yes I’m obviously getting old but they seemed really young) none of whom spoke English so the check in process was challenging to say the least! For the whole time we were there whenever we approached the front desk for anything they just shouted to each other in Chinese and giggled at us.. it was funny at first and all we could do was laugh back and try guess what they were saying about the crazy foreigners back again talking goggly gook but it did get a little frustrating .. anyways it was only a 3 night stay so we coped and it was very amusing!
Left to our own devices on the first evening, we decided to walk to the old town (slowly!) and check out our surroundings. It was only a few minutes before we saw our first Tibetan monks in full robes and Nike runners!! They are everywhere and blend in with the locals around town.
The old town is just that.. old! There were lots of small shops on ground floors with restaurants on top and homes in the back. We found a decent place to eat and on the way home stopped into a supermarket which as it turns out is the main supermarket in Tibet (called Baiyi) it had the largest choice of dried fruit and other strange stuff I’ve ever seen.. we must have spent an hour in there looking around and loading up on snacks!
Day 1 Tibet Tour:
Tourists visiting Tibet need to be part of an organised tour. I had found a tour company online called Great Tibetan Tours and they provided all the necessary visas (at a handsome fee of course) and had a proven track record so all we had to do was book our flights. It’s expensive to fly to Tibet – over $500 from Kathmandu return and it’s only an hour flight. That said, we knew it would be worth it and personally it’s been a dream of mine to visit this place since I learned about the Dalai Lama when I was a teenager. [Side note: the sickness from Nepal returned at around 3am after arrival in Tibet with the addition of vomiting and a headache so although I’m smiling in the photos I’m in a heap on the inside!!]
Our local Tibetan tour guide was amazing!!!! Her breath of knowledge about the history of Tibet and Buddhism in general was outstanding. She gave us so much information, at times hard to keep it all in but I was starting to identify the present Buddha from the future Buddha and I could spot Guru Rinpoche.. I was really getting into it! We were a group of five – myself & Suzanne along with a very nice Chinese lady and her Japanese partner and a US (via Ukraine) guy who we called Milk! We started off at 10am (happy days!) and headed for the Drupung monastery. We were lucky to see all the monks in the assembly hall praying together. Anna told us they pray for world peace. It was really cool to see them all lined up sitting in their robes some half asleep some very eager praying loudly and oddly enough none of them seemed to mind us walking around gawking at them!
In the afternoon we headed to the Sera monastery which is famous for the Monks Debate. We watched them for quite a while as they questioned each other and slapped hands with a little jump. It was fascinating to watch. We also saw some amazing mandalas made by the monks.
odohertyelaine 