Po Lin Monastery and Giant Buddha

Today a few of us took the trek out to Lantau Island to see the giant Buddha.  We first took the subway to Tung Chung station.  Then we got a bus which took about 35 minutes to climb the mountain to where the Buddha shrine and the Po Lin Monastery are located.  When we got off the bus we were surprised to look left and see this enormous Buddha gazing down upon us!  The trip out there took over two hours.  It was quite a pilgrimage!  I walked up the 250 steps to the base of the Buddha and, having bought a ticket to see the relic inside, I then toured the inside of the Buddha. No pictures are allowed there, alas.  It was adorned inside with many walls of memorials to ancestors with offerings of flowers, food, incense all around.  It is fascinating the extent to which the ancient Chinese religious custom of veneration of the ancestors, which comes from Confucianism and Daoism has permeated the Chinese popular piety among Buddhists.  I went up to the third level inside the Buddha and saw the place where the holy relic is kept.  It is a small crystal, found after the cremation of the Buddha's body, and they believe it to be the relic of a bone.  There were many Buddhists visiting there as a religious pilgrimage, circumambulating around the statue, offering prayers and incense, most particularly at the place where the relic is kept.  Inside the building are enormous wooden screens on which are written Buddhist scriptures and scenes depicting the Buddha and stories from Buddhist history.  Its really quite beautiful inside.  Those of us who paid for a ticket to go to the relic got a free ice cream and bottle of water after the visit, so I enjoyed that treat when I emerged from the Buddha shrine.  After I descended the steps, the others in my group were anxious to get on the cable car and make the return trip back to Hong Kong City.  I decided to stay behind, because I wanted to tour the grounds of the Po Lin Monastery, an old monastery that is in the process of being restored and re-built.  I watched devotees making incense offerings outside the temple itself.  I wandered the grounds and saw the hall of devotion to Avoletikeshvara, the Bodhissatva of Compassion.  I also visited the Hall of the Ancestors, yet another place where veneration of the ancestors takes place.  The complex is pretty huge, and there were lots of Buddhists there making offerings and saying prayers.  They even have a large vegetarian restaurant on the monastery grounds and I noticed that was where the Chinese were eating.    I was pleasantly surprised to see Buddhist nuns at the monastery, at least walking around. Don't know if they live there or were just visiting.  But they are the first nuns I've seen in all our travels to date!

After I was through visiting the monastery and the shrine I made my way back through the little tourist village they have built up on the hill there, and was fortunate that the bus I needed to take was there and about to depart, so I didn't have a long wait.  It was a 35 minute trip down the mountain, with lovely views out over the mountain and when we got to the bottom gorgeous views of the ocean and beach.  All told it took about 2 hours to return to the hotel, between the bus ride and then the subway.  But I feel quite comfortable navigating Hong Kong's public transportation now!  Too bad we're leaving tomorrow!!   That trek out to Lantau Island basically consumed the entire day.  Once I got back to the city there wasn't time for any more sightseeing, so I returned to the hotel to start the arduous task of packing!

We have our group "farewell dinner" this evening and then its pack and leave before dawn tomorrow.   Pray for traveling mercies and that there are no delays on the return journey.  I've got a pretty short layover in Tokyo, so am hoping the Hong Kong departure is on time because if its not the dominoes will fall and the whole trip will be delayed!

Temple, Sampan, Tea and Night Harbor

Hong Kong Day 2

Really full and busy day today.  We had a group tour this morning, which started with a walk through the "old section" of the city, the western side, where the high rises and shops and restaurants are built on the mountainous terrain.  There are a whole series of escalators and "travelators" that transport people up and down that neighborhood, which includes their version of "Soho" and "Chinatown."  Their Soho looks a lot like Soho in NYC!!  After wandering that neighborhood we visited the Man Mo Temple, a Daoist Temple, which was fascinating.  We went into the hall of ancestors, where people  make offerings to their dead relatives who are memorialized on plaques in the temple.  Then there are two other shrine rooms with statues of Daoist saints where folks bring offerings and make prayers.  The incense that burns in the temple are HUGE coils that hang from the ceiling. They light the end of each coil and it just continues to burn for hours.  I've incuded pics of some of the statues in the temple and the incense coils.

After the temple we went to a jewelry factory and then went to the harbor where we took a sampan ride through the area of the harbor where the floating village (or more accurately the vestiges of the floating village) still exists alongside multi-million dollar yachts!  There are boat people who have lived on small houseboats in the harbor for generations, although they are dwindling now as the younger generation has been required to attend pubic schools and, once educated, no longer want to continue the boat people's life.  The boats are extremely small.  The boat people are fishermen who sell their catch to the wholesalers at the fish market.  

We returned to the hotel and then three of us decided we wanted to do "afternoon tea" at the Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon Island.  We changed and took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon for the tea which begins at 2. We got there a little before 2 and there was already a long line for tea.  Fortunately it moved quickly so we only had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated.  It is a very elegant hotel lobby, not unlike the Plaza in NYC.  The afternoon tea is a full on British tea, with scones, finger sandwiches, cakes, and even an absolutely delicious chocolate mousse!  There was live violin and flute music to accompany tea.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely and it was very relaxing to sit there and enjoy the good food, terrific tea and the atmosphere.  I've included a pic of our three tiered tea tray and one of the restaurant itself.  The scones with clotted cream and jam were fabulous.  We rolled out of there close to 4:00 and had only a little time to browse around the area before we had to head back to our hotel for our evening excursion which began at 5:30. 

Our evening activities included a thai dinner (which I only picked at since I was still very full from tea!), followed by a walk through the night market, then a ferry ride across the harbor where we were able to enjoy the many lights on the buildings.  The lights are really fantastic on the buildings in the harbor, as they move and change and are multicolored and the whole scene is just a glittery, rainbow of color and special effects.  Its really magnificent.  Then we drove up to Victoria Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong where we were looking down on the enormous skyscrapers that we had watched from the harbor.  Then we came back down the mountain and took a trolley ride.  The trolleys in Hong Kong are double deckers, like London buses.  After that we returned to our hotel and it was nearly 11:00 PM when we rolled in here.  So it was a fun but somewhat exhausting day!!  Tomorrow is our last day and there are no scheduled activities although a bunch of us want to do a couple of tourist sites so we will all go together to those. 

I'm pretty tired from the day's activities so I'm off to sleep now.

More tomorrow night....

Hong Kong- Kowloon and Ferry Rides

Hong Kong Day 1

We were up very early this morning to depart Wuhan for Hong Kong.  Had to leave the hotel in Wuhan at 6:30 AM.  I didn't even have a chance to make a cup of PG Tips tea!  We got to our hotel in Hong Kong by 12:30 by which time I had a pounding headache from lack of caffeine. No morning tea, and very little breakfast (mostly Chinese options at the Wuhan hotel which I simply don't "do" in the morning!) and only a light snack on the plane.  I got into my room, went directly to exchange money and immediately bought milk so I could make tea!  Also bought a meat pie at a local bakery and came back to my room to have tea and the snack before heading out for the afternoon.  We had a fully free day, but our guide did arrange to take us on an "orientation" tour.  Basically he accompanied us to the ferry terminal so we would know how to take the ferry over to Kowloon Island. We are on Hong Kong island, in the city centre.   We took the ferry over to Kowloon and walked along the waterfront.  Then a few of us went meandering through the extensive shopping district in Kowloon, looking in various stores. 

Lord knows, this city is a shrine to the God of Consumption and wealth!!  High end stores selling everything from leather goods, to clothing, to jewelry and watches, to silk and wool tailors making custom suits, along with the usual array of Chinese souvenirs are absolutely everywhere and clearly, tourists come here with the sole purpose of shopping!  Finally three of us remained and we wandered through the Kowloon public park which was really beautiful.  Its very hot and humid here, but the sky is blue and the weather nice but for the heat.  All the stores and restaurants are fiercely air conditioned and as you walk along the shopping streets you get cooling blasts of cold air from open shop doors!  Its a relief, actually!  On our way back to our side of the harbor, we stopped for gelato at the ferry terminal, and then returned by ferry.  We were on our own for dinner and our only stipulation was "not Chinese!"  We found a nice Italian restaurant, where I was able to get my Tanqueray and tonic and one of the others got a good Belgian beer and we were happy!  I must say, we are all relieved to be back in a "first world" city, after weeks in China.  Being able to safely eat restaurant and street food, having rest rooms that are manageable and clean, having signs in English as well as Chinese just feels so relaxing after the rigors of this trip so far!  But we are paying for those luxuries.  Prices are astronomical here, just as they are in New York, San Francisco and London or Paris.  Its way more expensive to eat out here than back in China.  Tomorrow we have some scheduled events in the morning, then the afternoon to ourselves and an evening excursion with the group.  

I've included some pics of the harbor, which really is beautiful.  More tomorrow!

Ship Locks, Three Gorge Dam and Wuhan

China Day 13

Yichang to Wuhan

Not much to report today as it was primarily a travel day.   Last night at about 11:30 PM we entered the ship locks at the Three Gorge Dam.  I was packing my suitcase and getting organized for our departure today when I thought I'd go out on my cabin balcony and see what I could see in the darkness.  To my surprise, I was confronted with bright lights and a cement wall!  We had just entered the first lock.  It was absolutely fascinating to watch the ship lock process.  Since the ship was in the lock with my side against one side of the lock I decided to go up to the top deck so I could see better.  There were lots of folks up there in their pajamas, rain notwithstanding!!  One of my traveling companions was there too and we wound up staying up there till 1:00 AM.  We watched through the third lock, by which time we decided it was time to go to bed, since we had to be up early this morning.  It was amazing to watch the whole process.  Those lock chambers are pretty big - there were two cruise vessels and three huge barges going through the locks at the same time.  I was amazed as we passed into the second lock and the gates closed behind us.  We could see the lock on the other side for boats going upstream.  They were being lifted ever higher at each lock as we were being lowered.  It was really fun to look over at the other lock and all of a sudden ships started appearing over the edge of the wall and before you know it they are in full view!  Then when the gates closed on our lock we descended really quickly, in less than ten minutes.  What takes time, however, is opening and closing the hydraulic gates and then moving the ships (all 5 of them!) slowly from one lock to the next.  We noticed a lot of bats flying around over us as we stood there, but figured that was a good thing since they eat mosquitos and since we were in malaria territory the bats are actually helpful!

This morning we had an early excursion to the Three Gorge Dam visitors center. It would have been better on a good weather day. It was pouring rain and very misty and cloudy so we couldn't see really well and taking pictures was not helpful as everything just looks grey!  I took a couple of shots of the locks as we passed by them in the bus, so I've included one here. 

We then returned to our ship for lunch and then disembarked for our 6 hour bus ride to Wuhan, an industrial city with an international airport from which we will leave for Hong Kong tomorrow.  As we were leaving the ship, local Chinese porters carried the big luggage off ship.  I've included a picture of how they carry the luggage!  I couldn't believe my eyes as those guys hoisted 4 suitcases on the poles and walked down several flights of narrow stairs and through very narrow passageways and across the gangplanks to shore with those cases dangling from the pole!!

We took the main highway up here making a number of pit stops along the way. Honestly, the rest rooms on the highway rest stops were a Chinese cultural experience all their own.  The Chinese do not "queue up" or line up for anything.  They just push their way in.  It was every woman for herself in those rest rooms, a truly Darwinian survival of the fittest situation when there were crowds (which there were most times since this is prime traveling season!!)  And of course, the facilities were Asian style, which is its own kind of cultural experience!!  Never a dull moment on this trip, to be sure.  

When we entered Wuhan, an industrial city of 8.3 million people we once again saw the plethora of new high rise apartment buildings going up all over the place.  Huge, cement, high rise buildings are just springing up like weeds in every Chinese city.  The urbanization that the New York Times has been reporting on recently is very much in evidence here.

We checked into our hotel, had dinner and are now getting ready for an early night as we leave the hotel at 6:30 tomorrow morning.  More tomorrow from Hong Kong!

Cruising through The Gorges

China Day 12

Today started out somewhat quietly, and then got busy towards the end!  Got up early to do tai chi with "Dr. Lee."  Then after breakfast went to a lesson on how to play Mah Jong.  Pretty complicated game even though our Chinese teacher said she was giving us Mah Jong 101!  By about 11:15 the ship began its journey through the three gorges, which are absolutely spectacular to see.  It was very rainy/cloudy this morning but by midday the sun was coming through the haze, making it exceedingly hot.  I stood out on deck as long as I could stand the heat then came inside where the AC makes it bearable.  For part of the afternoon I sat on my own balcony and watched as we made our way through the second gorge, the Wu gorge.

The first and shortest gorge is the Qutang Gorge.  Its very scenic and majestic and goes for about 5 miles.  Then the next gorge is the Wu gorge, which is 28 miles long and has spectacular mountain scenery, with relocated villages dotting the hillsides and cliffs, and the occasional small waterfall coming down the side of the mountain.  The water is low now, at about 155 meters high. During the winter, it is 175 meters high and you can clearly see the high water mark on the gorges as you drift along.  The third gorge is the Xiling Gorge, at 47 miles long the longest of the bunch and in places pretty treacherous.   We're actually floating through that one now, although we can't see it because its dark!  As you go through the gorges the mountainsides are dotted with relocated villages, where folks were moved up the side of the mountain from the water's edge because the dam project flooded out their villages.  You can tell the villages are relocations because they are new, cement block homes, painted white.  The old village homes that were flooded out were usually made of mud and sticky rice!  You can see the farms the villagers have cultivated on the hillsides.  They use no machinery in their farming.  Its all done by human labor and aided by oxen.  They do have electricity, but not running water in their homes.  These villages are pretty remote, to say the least!  

At the end of the Wu gorge is a small relocated village, Badong, which is now more a city than a village as relocated families have swelled the population. It is connected with a suspension bridge to Guandukou which sits at the mouth of the Shennong stream.  We took our cruise ship to a dock in Badong, and transferred to a smaller ferry which then took us under the suspension bridge and into Bamboo gorge, a smaller but completely magnificent gorge that goes back into the area where one of the local ethnic minority peoples of China live.  They are the ancient Ba people, mountain dwellers who also fish and make their living from the river while also farming the hillsides.  The Tujia tribe were historically trackers who pulled boats along the Yangtze River by hand before the river was widened for the dam.  They are mountain peoples who live pretty simple and spartan life on the mountain, retaining many of their ancient customs.  Our local guide was a young woman of that tribe who was really delightful. As we rode through the Bamboo Gorge we saw one of the only remaining "hanging coffins" that used to be commonplace on the tops of these mountains.  The Ba people believed that when a person dies you need to get them as close to heaven as possible in order to help them get to heaven, so they would suspend coffins high up in crevices in the mountains. Years ago the practice was abandoned and the coffins that were all over those mountains were removed when the Three Gorges Dam project was started.  They were taken to museums.  This one was left so that there would be some record of what the mountains were like prior to the building of the dam project.

We rode into the Bamboo Gorge for about 50 minutes by ferry and then transferred into sampan boats, rowed by Tujia oarsmen, who are incredibly strong.  We took the small sampan far into the gorge.  It was fantastic to be so far into a side gorge and to see the wildness of the area.  We saw fish jumping out of the water, and a rickety suspension bridge that the Tujia peoples use to cross the gorge.  Their homes  are at the top of the mountain and they are remarkably agile at climbing up the steep and rocky cliffs.  Our local guide sang a folk song, a call and response song that alternated between her and one of the oarsmen.  It was really great fun.  After our foray into the gorge on the sampan we returned to the small ferry and then back to our cruise ship in Badong harbor.  On the way out of the gorge we saw macaque monkeys scampering along the shore, having come down the mountain for water from the river.  Just as we were arriving back at Badong an enormous and somewhat ferocious thunderstorm came through, so we disembarked from the ferry to our cruise ship amidst crackling lightning and ear splitting thunder!  It was pretty dramatic to set sail for the evening in the midst of that storm!  Tonight at about midnight we will arrive at the ship lock at the Three Gorges Dam area and go through a series of 5 locks which takes about 4 hours.  When we wake up tomorrow we'll be on the other side of the dam.  Our cruise director suggested that we try to stay up to see at least the first half hour or so of the ship lock process.  

I've included pics of a couple of the gorges (I took literally hundreds so it was hard to pick, but here's a small taste, a boat we passed in the Bamboo gorge, me on the sampan, and our local guide on the sampan.

Tomorrow we tour the Three Gorges Dam and then depart our ship for a 5 hour bus ride to Wuhan where we spend one night before our flight to Hong Kong.  I won't have access easily tomorrow until we get to Wuhan!

Fendu and Yangtze River

China Day 11 - Fengdu - Family Home and Local Market

Today we visited a relocated family in the town of Fengdu, 150 km from Chongqin on the banks of the Yangtze River.  Millions of villages along the river were flooded out to build the Three Gorges Dam, causing no small degree of controversy.  Our tour company arranges this home visit with a family that has been relocated because of the dam project.  Mr. Dao spoke with us.  He is 74 years old and moved to his relocated home in 1999.  He used to live right next to the river's edge, in a small mud home that had been in his family for 150 years.  He said the mud home that he had was about 2000 square feet, while this new home is a little over 5000 square feet.  He has a wife, 4 grown children, several grandchildren and great grandchildren.  He is a farmer and still has a small amount of land at the new place where he grows fruit and raises fish in a small fish farm.  The government compensated him for the move by paying him 100,000 rmb (yuan) (roughly $17,000)and he borrowed another 50,000 rmb ($8500) from relatives to have his new home built.  He seemed pretty happy with the relocation.  We toured his home which is spacious.  When he first moved he had a number of his children and their families living with him, but now only his wife is with him.  His new home was built right up against existing older homes that had been there for centuries.  The contrast between those older, mostly mud homes and his bigger, newer cement and brick home was stark.  

The building of the Three Gorges Dam has been quite controversial in China.   Millions of villagers were relocated as their villages were flooded out as the dam was built.  The government compensated them and moved them, sometimes nearby their old home, as was the case for Mr. Mao, sometimes further away if they had relatives in another area or were offered new jobs by the government in some other area.  In China, families cannot just decide to move.  They are assigned their housing permits in a particular city or village and that is where they are expected to stay for their lifetime. That is where they get their medical care, their old age social security etc.   If they want to move to another part of the country they have to ask for a permit and those are not easily given out.  The relocated families did get that option because it served the government's interests as they were doing the dam project.

When we left Mr. Mao's home, his next door neighbor showed us how they grind corn, to make corn meal for baking.  They have a stone mill that they operate by hand to do the milling. I've included a picture of him showing us how it works.

Then we went into Fengdu and walked through the town market.  This is where the locals go, not a tourist spot.  We were the only Westerners walking through the place.  Children found us fascinating!!  The food market had stalls and stalls of meat, fish, herbs, spices, pickled vegetables, raw vegetables, herbal medicines etc.  We saw women chopping and fileting fish with amazing speed wielding large knives with remarkable accuracy.  The highlight of that walk through was the stall where people were having pigs legs (complete with feet) "barbecued" which was accomplished by scorching it with a blow torch!  And the blow torch was big enough for a welder to use on steel, never mind on food!  Folks would bring their meat to the stall and the guy hung the leg on a hook and torched it!  One stall had smoked pig products including everything in the pig - stomach, heart, intestines, kidney, you name it.  They smoke it and eat it!  There were boxes full of chicken feet, which the Chinese consider a delicacy.  We walked through the market and then through the local streets which were teeming with people.  It was great to be in the local neighborhood watching people playing mah-jong, cards, walking babies, milling about, shopping.  A couple of our group who were in China over 10 years ago said this town was more like the China they saw then, rather than the upgraded China that we have seen in the major cities, where the building boom is everywhere evident, as monumental high rise apartments are being built all over the place.  In every city we've been in we have marveled at the endless array of huge, (ugly) high rise apartment buildings that are under construction.  

When we came back to the ship we had a very interesting lecture about the Three Gorges Dam and the history of the Yangtze River basin.  After lunch we had another talk by a Chinese doctor about traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and "cupping."  He did demonstrations of both!  I had never heard of "cupping" until this trip and it was certainly fascinating to watch the demonstration on the member of our group who was willing to be the guinea pig!  They take glass cups that look like small flower vases, quickly insert a cotton ball that is soaked in alcohol and then set on fire into the cup to remove all oxygen from the cup and then put the cup on the skin at the crucial places (determined through Chinese medicinal methods like they do for acupuncture).  The cup sticks to the skin and then draws it up into the cup - its really incredible to watch!  It leaves quite a bruise when removed but the Chinese swear by it as a way to treat certain kinds of chronic ailments.  Google it - Wikipedia has an article about it.  It was really fascinating to learn more about Chinese medicine.  While it sounds weird to us, I have to admit they've been at it for thousands of years and they know something about healing arts from which Western medicine could learn a thing or two. 

The rest of the day I've spent relaxing on the ship.  We've cruised down the Yangtze River and its been nice to sit on the deck and watch the scenery, although I can't stay outside for long as it is really hot and humid!  In the Executive Lounge they had champagne this afternoon and I can report that the Chinese have a long way to go when it comes to "fruit of the vine" drinks!! Wine and champagne are most definitely not their strong suit!  I think I'll stick to my G&Ts while I'm on ship.  They even have Tanqueray, so I'm a really happy camper.

I've included some pics of the river scenery, Mr. Mao and his home, a neighbor's older, more traditional village home, the neighbor grinding the corn, and shots from the market.  

TIbet to Chonqing

Tibet to Chonqing and River Cruise

Today was a quiet day all told.  We left our Tibet hotel early (7:30)AM to head to the airport for a 9:30 flight.  When we got there we saw that it was delayed an hour. One hour turned into three hours, so we spent most of the day sitting in the Tibet airport!  We were all sitting together and at one point a very nice Tibetan man came over and sat down across from me and asked where we were from.  When we told him we were Americans he launched into a very frank conversation about the situation in Tibet, the Chinese occupation, the extent to which Tibetans yearn for the return of the Dalai Lama,  the extent to which they feel as though the Chinese are trying to obliterate their culture.  He said Tibetans can't get passports to travel abroad.  If they want to leave Tibet they have to illegally cross the border, but of course, if they do that and are spotted by Chinese military they are usually shot.  I was amazed that he was being so frank with us right in the airport.  One of the members of my group asked if he could take his picture and he said no, because he would get in trouble if the picture were to appear online somewhere particularly if what he was saying about the Chinese were to be associated with him.  We asked him if he felt he was taking a risk talking to us in the airport and he said most of the Chinese and the Tibetans don't speak English so he felt safe enough engaging us in conversation. He said he wanted to practice his English.  He said he loves America because we support the Dalai Lama and the campaign to free Tibet.  He felt safe knowing that Americans are supportive of the Tibetan people's desire to be free of Chinese occupation. He learned his English from an American who lived in Tibet for a couple of years.  So, our delay actually gave us a picture of Tibet that we did not get on the tour!

Our flight to Chonqing was two hours so we got in around 4.  By the time we collected all the luggage and got out of the airport it was time for an early dinner.   We stopped at a restaurant in Chonqing.  I only ate rice, as my stomach is still not completely over the bug I got yesterday and Chinese food is NOT what I want at this stage of recovery!  I feel much better, and the meds have kicked in, but Chinese food just doesn't appeal right now.

We then came to our ship, the Katarina.  I had to laugh as we were boarding the ship a small marching band of Chinese kids play music as we come up the gangplank.  They played "O Susanna" followed by Jingle Bells!  We all had a giggle over that one!  Turns out that I signed up for the Executive Level (don't remember doing so but it gives me more perks, so I'm fine with it!).  Got into my room and am looking forward to a relaxing evening.  They have a stocked bar on this ship so a G&T is in my immediate future!  I've included some pics of the ship, my stateroom and the view from my balcony.  We all have a little balcony that we can sit out on and watch the river go by!  Its quite nice.  So that's it for today!  It was a long travel day and I'm glad to be able to relax on the balcony and go to sleep early.  

Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple

Tibet Day 3 -  Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple

Today the highlight of the day was our visit to Potala Palace.  The Potala Palace was built in 1653 and another portion in 1683, was the political and spiritual home of the Dalai Lama.  It was from this palace that he fled Tibet in 1959.  The palace has 1000 rooms of which only 16 are open to visitors.  There are 360 steps to climb to get up to the portion of the palace where the rooms on view are located.  It is basically a museum now, tended by monks and they were there in most every room, sitting on their prayer cushions chanting away as thousands of visitors streamed through.  There are many sacred statues in the palace, an enormous collection of scriptures, and the burial stupas of previous Dalai Lamas.  In these stupas the bodies of these previous Dalai Lamas are embalmed and preserved and they are encased in these enormous gold, silver, copper and other precious metal structures that are encrusted with jewels and religious symbolism.  The rooms in the palace are ornately decorated in Tibetan style, with scenes from Buddhist scripture and cosmology on every wall.  The room of the current Dalai Lama is left exactly as he left it when he fled Tibet in 1959.  Security is very tight at the Palace and no pictures are allowed inside.  Our guide said they have hidden cameras all over and if someone does take a photograph they are in trouble.  For folks like us on a group tour, one such infraction would mean the tour company would be banned from bringing more groups there!  We had only 70 minutes to go through all the rooms and our guide was amazing at imparting a lot of information pretty quickly!  Tibetans come to the palace and circumambulate its perimeter down at the bottom, spinning the prayer wheels and prostrating themselves as they go.  It is a very holy place, notwithstanding the extent to which the Chinese are controlling it and curbing access to it as much as possible.  All 14 of us managed to get to the top which our guide said was a first for him this year!  Usually a few folks give up because of the altitude sickness but we all managed to do it, even though some did it slowly. It is a long climb!  The views up top out over the mountains are beautiful and well worth the climb.  And the interior is spectacular.  I bought the souvenir book since pictures were not allowed inside.

After we climbed back down we were all pretty tired.  We went to lunch and then came back to the hotel for a rest.  By then I was not feeling well and it became apparent that I've managed to contract the traveler's GI illness that is almost de rigeur on trips like this one.  I've taken all the meds I brought with me and am hoping that by later tonight I'll feel better.  I doubt I'll eat much dinner though.  At this point food does not appeal!

After lunch we went to the Jokhang Temple, one of the holiest places in Tibet and a signficant place of pilgrimage for Tibetans.  They come from all over the country to pray in this temple at the golden statue of Sakyamuni Buddha.  Once again, the security at the Temple was intense and we had to go through screening not unlike airport security.  No pictures were allowed inside there either.  One member of our group who was here in 1986 was appalled at how the Chinese have "ruined" the temple area.  It is now very tightly controlled so that even the Tibetan pilgrims who ordinarily would be doing the prostrations as part of their pilgrimage in the large square in front of the temple are not permitted to do so and are limited to a very small area right in front of the entrance.  And once inside, most of the little chapel rooms are closed to the public.  People leave their offerings outside the rooms and if they want a blessing from a monk, the monk comes out to them.  It was absolutely packed inside the temple and very smoky from the incense and the yak butter candles that burn all over the place.  In fact the floor was pretty slippery from the yak butter oil that is used in the candles.  After we left the inside of the temple we went up on the roof where we had a great view out over Lhasa and could see the Potala Palace.  We also saw off in the mountains an enormous storm brewing complete with thunder.   We were glad we had done the mountain monasteries yesterday because it might have been a little too exciting to be up on those mountains when that storm blew up!  

I was relieved to learn that we had the rest of the afternoon free, as I was not feeling up to much.  I returned to the room and am taking it easy waiting for the meds to kick in so I feel better.  At this point in the trip we've got a few folks suffering from something or other.  Our guide has a bad cold as do a couple of the travelers.  A few folks have felt wobbly all week due to the altitude.  Side effects of intense travel!  Tomorrow we leave very early for our flight back to China.  Then we start our three day Yangtze River cruise.  I'm hoping I feel better before we start the airplane travel tomorrow as that is always pretty tiring with lots of traipsing about all over the place and lugging heavy bags etc.   I'm going down early tonight to be sure!

Pics today are of the palace and the temple and a shot I got at the Palace of a typical Tibetan lady.  I wish I could have taken interior shots because they were amazingly beautiful!

Monasteries, Monks and Mountains

Tibet Day 2

Very full day today.  Woke up with a headache, thanks to the altitude.  Advil and lots of water cleared it up for most of the day, although its back again now so I just took some more advil. 

We started the day with a home visit to a local family here in Lhasa.  It was really neat to be inside a Tibetan home and to see how they live.  They served us a variety of Tibetan snacks, along with barley beer and yak butter tea, the Tibetan specialty.  The women in the family do beautiful traditional crafts creating aprons, purses, and lots of other gorgeous fabric items.  We saw their beautiful home temple, which is a whole separate room in their house and unbelievably ornate and well adorned.  They've even got a stack of Buddhist scriptures in there - this is a serious home temple.  Its adorned with the tangkas for which Tibet is famous, as well Buddha statues, pictures of the Dalai Lama and their local lama, a large incense burner etc.  

After we left their home we went to a local carpet weaving workshop where we saw how the yak wool rugs are made.  We watched a couple of women weaving the rugs while singing Tibetan folk songs!  Then we went to the Tibetan museum, which has a wonderful display of artifacts from Tibet's history.   There is an entire gallery devoted to tangkas and they've got tangkas going back hundreds of years.  It is a real feast for the eyes.  I was fascinated by the tangkas from the 17th century that were used by physicians showing the human body and its anatomy.  They knew quite a lot about the body and had a pretty extensive traditional medicinal art centuries ago.  

After we left the museum we went to a restaurant near our hotel for lunch.  It was my favorite meal so far, largely because it tasted decidedly Indian!  Tibet is close to India, and, given that the Dalai Lama's Dharamsala is really a "little Tibet" in India there is considerable Indian influence in Tibet.  The food was really excellent, with curries, dal, naan bread, something that looked like an egg roll but tasted totally Indian in terms of flavors and spices, and then we had deep fried apples for dessert.   We're getting a lot of yak meat, which is their beef.  It tastes very good so we're not complaining.  

We then had about 15 minutes to "rest" before we headed out to the Sera Monastery and the Papunkga Monastery, both of which are just outside Lhasa up in the mountains a little way.  Sera Monastery is one of the three largest monasteries in Tibet, which was built in 1419.  Its a pretty extensive complex, now housing only 400 monks, down from the 5500 who used to live there.  Since 2008, the Chinese government has refused to issue permits to allow the monasteries to recruit and enroll new young monks, as was the custom for centuries, when families would send at least one of their sons to the monastery at about the age of 6.  In the modern era, with the one child policy imposed by China and the restriction on permits to enroll new monks, the monasteries are shrinking dramatically.  The Chinese government wants to reduce the size of the monasteries because they see the monks as threats to their political power in Tibet.  

At the monastery we toured the library where the scriptures are housed.  That was amazing, as the scriptures are carved onto long wooden blocks and each block is labeled as to what it is and they are all lined up on shelves that go from floor to ceiling.  When they want to read a particular scripture, a monk takes the wood block down and paints it with ink and prints the sutra on paper.  

After the library we toured the Assembly Hall, where the monks gather daily for their chanting prayer services.  The hall is enormous and bedecked with tangkas and statues of the Buddha.  Rows and rows of prayer cushions many with the signature "yellow hats" line the main hall.  Yak butter oil candles burn all over the place.  Its really stunning.  

Then we went to see the kitchen which is really huge and impressive although certainly not modern!  After that we went to the open air square in the monastery complex where the monks were engaged in their daily debate ritual.  The senior/teacher monks drill the younger student monks on the principles of Buddhist philosophy.  The teacher has one or two students sitting in front of him and asks a question which they must answer. If they are wrong he claps his hand right over their head in front of their face and chastises them.  Its all very dramatic and ritualistic.  It goes on for hours every afternoon, being a significant part of a monk's education.  Makes being "called on" in law school look like child's play, truly!  I video'd a part of it because you need to hear the sound of all the talking, yelling and slapping that is going on - the din is quite remarkable!!  I've included some pics of the debating monks with this post.

After that we left Sera Monastery and drove further up the mountain to a very small, very old monastery, Papungka Monastery, which is used more as a hermitage than a living and teaching monastery.  Its right on the hillside of the mountain, and the few monks that are there live in a small dwelling.  There is also a hermitage way up the mountain in which a couple of monks seclude themselves for 2-3 years at a time.  We were delighted to see yaks up there grazing on the grounds!  The grounds of this monastery also have many stupas, and the special building from which "sky burials" take place.  In Tibetan Buddhism, when someone dies, there are a number of ceremonies that take place immediately after death for a couple of days.  Then the body is taken up to the top of the mountain and someone specially trained (their version of funeral directors!) literally chops the body in pieces and offers it to the vultures.  This is because the Tibetans believe that the human body is merely a vessel for the soul to be used in a given lifetime and when the soul departs the body can be returned to the universe as food for other living creatures.  Apparently, these "sky burials" take place every morning and seem to be a significant source of food for the vultures!  After the vultures are done, there are only bones left, which are then cremated and the ash is mixed with special sand and other minerals to create Buddha statues which are then placed outside around the monastery grounds. Our guide described this ritual with considerable reverence, but it was obvious that some of the group were rather shocked and appalled at the description of this practice!!

It was really thrilling to be up on the mountain with beautiful views of Lhasa all around us.  The landscape is truly breathtaking. And although the temperature was only in the mid-70s, by the time we were up there it felt very hot in the sun because the air is so clear and so thin that the sun's rays really get through!

When we returned from all these activities we only had barely half and hour before dinner.  Then after dinner I hit the local market to get my shopping done. I wandered up a local street near the temple and it was not a tourist street, but one populated by the locals.  It was great fun to see the Tibetan families milling about and children playing and to see the shops where they shop as opposed to the tourist shops on the main strip.

Tomorrow we are to see the Potala Palace.  I'm hoping I'll be able to make it up the 360 steps.  Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue, but I've noticed today that I'm much more easily winded at this altitude than is usual for me, so we'll just have to see.  The guide warned us that there are always folks who don't make it because of the altitude problem, particularly in cases like ours where we've only been here a couple of days and haven't really had time to fully acclimate.  So I'll see what happens!

I've included pics of the Assembly Hall at the Sera Monastery, the monks in their debating ritual, and some shots from up on the mountain at Papungka Monastery with the beautiful scenery and the yaks!