Tibet - At the top of the world

So my last stop in China was Tibet, place that is called to be a rooftop of the world. To reach it was slightly pain in the ass, as I spent 42hrs in the train. I had a sleeper, but travel agent did book a top one (there are 3 bunk beds top of eachother), which had such small place that could not even sit on a bed, so I was forced to rest. Positive was that especially during second day the views from train were great!


Finally when reached Lhasa, first I was taken to a side because police have to register all foreigners who arrive in Tibet because they require special travel permit that shows that you have an official tour guide with you. Its all because of political reasons, in Tibet there are stationed lots of police officers and military troops to “maintain and supervise order in Tibet.” It was very interesting to talk with our tour guide and also see his attidute towards Chinese government. The way how certain type of power struggles of identity can be seen in Tibetian people daily life i.e. Government dont allow Tibetian people have passports so they cant travel outside China oron the other hand Tibetian people dont like to drink Lhasa beer because its owned by Chinese businessman.

To understand history and Tibetian way of thinking, the most important figure is Dalai Lama who is head of Tibet in political and religious issues. Buddhism is the backbone of life as people are very religious. In Lhasa there are three main “Pilgrim circles” that people walk around daily bases praying., they are like 10km, 3km and 1km. Then people pray on yearly bases 100 00 times by bending down and up, and some people even complete that amount within few months. Of course monks are then a group of their own as they devode their life for studying religious text books, which have to first be memorized and then understand them. By doing that it is possibleto complete a bachelor degree (6years) and master degree (another 6years), exams are based on debating with other monks and our group was lucky to see this debate going on when visitng in Sera monastery. There are two main monasteries in Lhasa, Sera and Drepung - those used to have thousands of monks living there, nowadays there are only hundreds anymore.

Besides those monasteries there are two main places to visit which symbolizes Tibet, Potala Palace, home of Dalai Lama and Jokhang Temple, center of old town of Tibet and a place “where all starts”, according our tour guide (like demonstrations in 2008). Potala palace is massive, one thousands rooms and one thousand windows (symbolizes 1000 lives of Buddha), visitors are only allowed see some parts of palace, which is good in a way that walking through thousand rooms might take a while... I tried to spot Dalai Lama but because he is in excile it was only possile tombs of previous ones. Most massive was tomb of fifth one (almost 4tons of gold and huge ammount of precious stones) as he is the one who started construction of Potala Palace.

Jokhang temple is main place for Tibetians for worshipping. There were many people praying outside of the temple, walking around it (one of the Pilgrim circles) or praying inside. One way to get blessing is to bring your religious statue to temple overnight and then monks will give a blessing for it and you can pick it up next day. Like I said, Tibetian are quite religious people.

Of course Tibet is not only about Buddhism, it also have a stunningly beautiful landscapes. My Tibet trip took me overnight for lake Namtso, one of the holy lakes in Tibet. It took totally five hours to drive there even that distance is only 250km, but the roads and speed controlling. I think they have one of the most efficient speed control system in Tibet that I have come across with: There are police checkpoints between certain distances (i.e.60km) where they check your timing how long it was when you passed previous checkpoint and the speed ticket is then based on timing and it costs 100rmb per minute if driving too fast. Of course it can be questioned, is it only for speed control or also for general people control not so spend too much time “somewhere” as the destination also needed to be mentioned...

When we finally did reach the lake, altidute of 4700m above sea level, sun was shining and wind blowing. Lhasa is 3600m altidute and there i didn't have any signs of mountain sickness, but reaching 4700m day was fine but evening got little bit mountain sick (headache and lack of apetite). Place itself was really beautiful, huge lake surrounded by snow-top mountains. Yak's, goats wondering around freely. Never tried Yak meat before, but here in Tibet had a chance for that and have to say that it was delicious.

But now it is time to leave Tibet behind. Im flying to Kunming at evening and stay a night at airport before saying goodbye China when heading to Bangkok.... Or actually thanks to Chinese government ""Great Wall" Im already in Bangkok and able to access facebook, google etc. again freely so I can publish my blog texts...