The Roof of the World!

June 2, 2012

Morning came very early this morning...we had to get up and get ready for an early departure for the airport. When we checked in to the hotel, our transfer agent told us that we were going to leave for the airport at 5:50am, and that he had arranged for the hotel restaurant to be open for us at 5:00am. So, we followed instructions and were ready and down in the restaurant by 5:00...hmmm, why no lights? And the staff is just now setting tables and there is no food out at the buffet. So, we meet a few others from our group and sit down to watch and wait...after 25 minutes, we leave to go get our bags from the room. When we get back downstairs, our transfer agent, Mr. Fu, has arrived and we inform him that there is no breakfast. He discusses the matter with the staff and they point to three room-temperature pans with rice, beans and sausages and hard-boiled eggs...not sure we want to trust the room-temperature food. We ask about cereal and milk,and they point us to the milk...it is in a coffee pot and is piping hot. The cereal shows up, and as we start to eat dry raisin bran, the cold milk shows up. We eat quickly and head for the bus that will take us to the airport.

We have a very nice group...5 of the 6 of us are from Washington state...what are the odds?! The sixth is from San Diego. We board the bus and drive to the airport. As we drive along we see the pole banners advertising not only the puppeteer conference, but another big gathering that gives us pause...the World Biomaterials Congress...we wonder what exactly is the biomaterial that the world needs to meet about...?

Once at the airport, we are immersed into a sea of humanity, all of whom are checking in for a flight.

Our transfer agent accompanies us through our line and up to the ticket counter...then our progress stops. It seems that our first names and last names have been reversed on our all-important permit to enter Tibet, and the airline and Chinese security don't like that. (Just a relevant tidbit of information...in Western countries, the family name comes last, but in China, Korea and Japan, the family name comes first...! However, we are not the first westerners to come through our travel company, so now Mr. Fu is batting two for two...) After about ten or fifteen minutes we're back on track and check in.

Next stop, security...where they again check our boarding passes, passports and the Tibet permit. Once cleared through security we're good to go...!

You know, we didn't have to go to the bathroom until we turned the corner outside of security and saw this advertisement...!

Funny, once Patty was in the airport ladies room, the toilet looked nothing like the advertisement in the concourse...!

Again, we board the plane and are the only non-Asians on the flight. It is at moments like this that we also realize we are the only people with hair that is not black! Once we're on board and ready for take-off, we get the announcement that we are in a ground hold due to air traffic control...really, there's that much traffic flying to Lhasa?! So, the flight attendants break out the beverages and put a video on...and we kill an hour on the tarmac.

Eventually we get underway, and as we prepare for take-off we can really see how "foggy" it is...you can hardly see across the airport!

Once in flight, the crew delivers our breakfast...and we learn that in China the word "elegant" has a different meaning than we're used to...

Breakfast was an interesting assortment of foods...a warm portion of absolutely taste-free rice porridge, a dinner roll with butter, two wedges of orange, and a small square of cake that was a cross between angel food and pound cake. There was also a small plastic envelope with a photo of a food that we did not recognize, a lot of Chinese writing, and a small logo in the corner that said "No Antisceptic"...we wondered, is it good thing or a bad thing that it does not contain antisceptic? (We found out later that the contests were shredded pickles for inclusion in the taste-free rice porridge, and decided no antisceptic would definitely be better.)

Patty liked the idea of cake for breakfast...!

Our flight to Lhasa took nearly two hours, and we got the chance to see the same video three more times while in flight...you gotta love those hidden camera prank videos...We got some photos of the mountains and terrain as we made our approach.

We also asked ourselves why the buildings at the airport are painted in a camouflage pattern...who are they trying to hide the airport from...?

Once we've collected our bags, we head outside into the cool, dry, thin air of Tibet, and meet our guide for the trip, Steve. His Tibetan associate Nima presents us all with good luck/best wishes scarves...a Tibetan tradition.

We make our way to Lhasa, passing through a very long tunnel that takes us under the mountain rather than diving around it. Along the way we stop at a Buddha figure that was carved into the rock in the 11th century...

What?! Even Buddha needs 3G service...

Along the road to Lhasa we see authentic traditional Tibetan farmhouses....OK, they were constructed by the Chinese government for the tourists...and the farmers refuse to live in them...but they're authentic!

The road into Lhasa has been turned into a wide and impressive boulevard, and this has only been done in the past few years...Lhasa has gone from a tiny outpost to a city of half a million in less than ten years.

The most famous sight in Lhasa...the Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lamas...we'll spend time in the palace the day after tomorrow...

Around noon we arrive at our hotel...a small, simple but nice hotel which we will call home for four nights...

Our group meets for lunch in a lovely little courtyard garden in the interior of the hotel...we have a views of the garden from our room, and it is a nice respite from the traffic and noise of Chengdu...

After a couple hour break to get situated in our rooms and to relax a little, we head out with the group for a little walking tour of the area around the Jokhang Temple which we will see tomorrow, and then we go to dinner at a local restaurant. Our hotel is located in the Tibetan section of Lhasa, and the streets are lined with apartments and small shops catering to the minority Tibetan population.

Because of the self-immolation protest that occurred here a week ago, there is a heavy army and police presence everywhere. We had to pass through a security checkpoint and scanner to get onto the square where the temple is. Notice that one of the soldiers has a fire extinguisher strapped to his back...

The Jokhang is the holiest temple in Lhasa, and it is a temple that attracts a lot of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims. The temple faces a large square that is lined with small shops and vendor stalls selling textiles, leather goods, jewelry, thangkas which are scroll paintings of Buddha, prayer wheels, and many other items.

We got our first view of the pilgrims who come to walk the circular path around the temple, spinning their prayer wheels, some saying prayers aloud, and some even prostrating themselves as they make their way around the outside of the temple. The prostrating cycle begins with the pilgrim standing straight up, with their arms straight up overhead...then they bring their hands to their mouths, then their chest, then they get down on their knees, then onto their bellies. While on their bellies they stretch their arms out forward over their heads and place their prayer beads on the ground. Then the pilgrim stands, takes a couple steps forward to where his or her beads are, and do the whole thing over again. Some pilgrims will do this for miles along their pilgrimage trek to Lhasa. You can see a pilgrim on his belly in fron of the Jokhang in the center of this photo...

We strolled along the circular path, called a Kora, with the pilgrims, wandered through the market, and ducked inside a small artisan colony where they make paintings, leather goods, carpets, and other traditional handmade items. One of the things these artists make are metal Buddha statues...

As we worked our way back out of the market, we came across a store we don't typically see in the U.S....

Apparently, these little fungi will cure anything that ails you, and there are Tibetan farmers who make more money off of these little beauties that they do their yaks or field crops. This stuff sells for over $115 a gram! At this particular intersection of alleys in the market there was a cluster of four of these shops, but only this one was open and the shopkeeper showed us his fungi...

You'll also notice in the above photo that this shopkeeper is a Muslim. There is a Muslim section to the market area, though outside of the Jokhang square area, and we passed the Muslim temple on our wanderings. It appeared that here, the Muslims have the corner on the caterpillar fungus market.

Before going to dinner, we stopped at a rooftop deck and had something to drink. The vantage point gave us a great view of the temple and the square we had wandered through...it also gave us a view of the Chinese Army "observers" stationed on the rooftops across the way ( but it was best not to take their photo).

We also had a great view of the mountains that surround Lhasa, including these peaks that have prayer flags strung between them...We learned earlier today that prayer flags are five colors: white for clouds, blue for the sky, yellow for the earth, red for fire, and green for water.

Once out of the market, we make our way to a local restaurant for dinner. On the way, we pass a shop that had such an intriguing sign...but unfortunately it was closed so we did not solve the mystery of what it actually sold under this sign...

Tonight we dined at a local steak place...which in Lhasa means that the menu will have a lot of yak on it. This restaurant, however, had quite an extensive menu that included chicken and even schnitzel!

We had a nice dinner with good conversation, then we made our way back to the hotel for a much deserved sleep. Tomorrow the learning and sightseeing begins in earnest. It is pretty remarkable to be in Tibet, The Roof of the World.

PS: we are able to post entries to our blog, but we are not able to actually see our blog online due to Internet restrictions in China...so we hope you're enjoying reading them...we're having fun sharing them!