17.5

Lhasa day one.

We live in the Tibetan neighborhood of Lhasa. One surely does not need to worry about being robbed here as there is military checkpoints in every second intersection, military on the roofs of most buildings and last night when walking home from a bar two armored vehicle carrying troops passed us on the street. In addition to this, there is patrols of army guys walking around all the time, usually you spot one every five minutes.

So, the first day in Lhasa is almost over. Just got back to the hotel after having spent the whole day sightseeing and unfortunately visiting jewelry stores. I’ve been told there are a lot of nice things here.

We went to Potala palace today, its that iconic building on top of a mountain most people probably have seen in pictures and on TV. Our guide told us that it took fifty years for tens of thousands of Tibetans to build it by their bare hands. I asked him how many died, apparently none died. I doubt that.

Lhasa day  two.

We went to Jokhulam monastery(I probably misspelled it), the atmosphere was better than at Potala. There were all these monks and ordinary citizens praying, burning incense, queuing up to meet monks from whom they want to ask advice etc. The lack of atmosphere in Potala can be attributed to the fact  that it is not used anymore, when again Jokfulam is the most important monastery in Tibet.

Other than going to Jokfulam monastery, Annika did some shopping and I followed. I’ve been told there are a lot of nice jewelry here.

I felt kind of out of place today when it started snowing and I was wearing sandals and shorts. But for some strange reason it still did not feel that cold, and the snow didn’t stay on the ground for too long. It melted almost immediately. But you can see that the hill tops that surround Lhasa are covered in snow, something that they weren’t when we arrived here.

Last day.

Haven’t written for a while, but then again not much has happened. Just been visiting all these different monasteries and nunneries, and today we went to a sky burial site. It is custom in Tibet that when one dies, he or she is fed to vultures. How this works is that, the relatives bring the corpse to a sky burial site where it is sliced and diced in to smaller pieces while the relatives watch. After this the body is left out in the open for vultures that come and eat it, ones there is nothing left the relatives are free to leave. There is seating and everything where the relatives may sit and watch while the body is cut in to small pieces and subsequent feast.

Oh, one more thing. We were in our second car accident in China today. The car that was transporting us back to the hotel collided with another car. Last time the same happened was last fall in Beijing when our taxi collided with the car in front of it.