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!

Lhasa, Tibet

We arrived safely in Tibet this morning at about 9:30, having left our Chengdu Hotel at 5:30!  We got on the bus and arrived at the hotel by lunchtime.  We had lunch first, then got the keys to our rooms and settled in.  Due to the extremely high altitude the guide insisted that we take it very easy today and nap briefly in the afternoon to rest our bodies and help them adjust to the thin air here.  I'm taking the altitude sickness meds so am not feeling anything adverse from the change, but a few of my traveling companions are suffering a bit from the sudden jump to 12,000'.  After my nap I went out to walk around the neighborhood.  We are staying in the old city of Lhasa, literally one block from the Jokhang Temple, one of the major places of pilgrimage in Lhasa.  The effects of the Chinese occupation are felt and evident everywhere, as soldiers are visible all over the place, and there is security screening to get into the temples.  At the airport the soldiers were really visible.  On our way to Lhasa we had to go through a checkpoint, which reminded me of being in the West Bank.  Tibet is most definitely a country under occupation and the influence of the Han Chinese is everywhere.  Our guide invited us to ask "controversial" questions but only to do so in the bus, not when he is taking us through the various sites that we are going to see.  We were instructed never to take pictures of police or military personnel.  

The neighborhood where our hotel is located is full of shops selling traditional Tibetan crafts, clothing and religious articles.  Its a real feast for the eyes!  I wandered up and down our street and then found the Barkhar Bazaar which used to be on the temple grounds and has now been moved to the street leading up to the temple as part of the tightened security measures.  The bazaar has hundreds of stalls selling everything Tibetan and Buddhist - prayer wheels, prayer flags, tangkas, prayer beads, statues of the Buddha, clothing, scarves, sweaters, jewelry...you name it, they've got it.  I spent a lot of time looking at the various tangkas in the shops  - these are traditional Tibetan Buddhist paintings mounted on brocade fabric.  They are absolutely beautiful and colorful and the artwork is spectacular.  I intend to get one before I leave but truly, the choices are a bit overwhelming!!

One thing we are all grateful for is that the weather here is sunny, in the mid 70s and low humidity. This is the first day we were able to walk around outside and not be completely drenched in sweat within minutes.  Its a welcome relief from the oppressive heat we've had in China these past 10 days! 

Before supper we had a lecture about Tibetan history and geography from a professor at the Tibet University.  That was very interesting and she was great at the Q&A so we learned a lot about Tibet.  Then we had our dinner and a few of us went back out to explore the neighborhood more.  Tibet is quite a study in contrasts - all the old, traditional Tibetan clothes, religious articles etc. right next to ultra modern stores, with jumbotron screens blaring advertising into the street.  And motorcycles, mopeds and tuk-tuks are ubiquitous and quite happy to run you over if you're not watching carefully!  We went to the local supermarket, which was enormous and enjoyed wandering around seeing what they had and trying to figure out what things are since nothing is in English and much of it is not easily identifiable without help!  We then wandered back to the outdoor market which was all lit up for the evening.  

The pics tonight include the lobby of our hotel, some shots from the open air market, including one that amused me of a monk carrying a statue of the buddha around with him, a Tibetan man with his prayer wheel, and a night scene at the market.

At this point I'm ready for bed.  The nap helped this afternoon, but I'm still feeling the effects of having gotten up at 4:15 this morning!  

Pandas, Park and Dumplings

China Day 10 - Panda Sanctuary, Sichuan "Snack" Lunch and Local Park

We had a full day again today.  Started out visiting the Giant Panda Sanctuary.  The pandas are simply beautiful creatures to watch and so totally adorable you just want to jump inside the enclosure and hug them.  While we were there the weather was rather threatening with dark clouds and thunder, so some of them were moved inside by the park rangers and we had to see them in their inside enclosures where its harder to take pictures.  We watched some young cubs playing with one another and in another enclosure watched a mother and baby playing together.  The baby climbed up on one of the structures, rolled around for awhile, then climbed down, but hung in mid-air for a few minutes on the downward climb as if not sure what to do next!  It was highly entertaining!  We also saw "red pandas" which are not actually bears at all, but members of the raccoon family.  Also very cute.  We saw a film about the breeding program they have here in the panda sanctuary, where they have been quite successful at breeding these rare animals and it is no small feat to do so.    They try to get the pandas to mate naturally, but the girls can be fussy, so when the girl pandas reject the boys that the breeders have brought in for them (as happens with some regularity apparently!!) then they use artificial insemination methods!  Often the females give birth to twins.  In the wild, the panda mothers who have twins just ignore one of them because they can't care for more than one cub at a time, so the second one dies. In captivity the twins are cared for by the veterinary staff and are rotated in to the mother alternately so she actually does care for both and then they are able to have both survive.  We saw a newborn in an incubator and it was amazing to see how very tiny it is.  Hard to imagine that those big bears start out so very, very tiny.  

After the pandas we went to lunch at a great restaurant where we were served a variety of Sichuan "snacks", mostly dumplings and various noodles with spicy sauces.  We also had about 4 regular dishes in addition to the extensive "snack" menu.  We rolled out of there stuffed to the gills!  The food was delicious and all of the items served are indigenous to this province in China.  

After lunch, we walked through the local park, the Chengdu version of Central Park.  It was a lively Sunday afternoon, with folks out dancing, singing, hanging out in the various tea rooms and walking through the lovely grounds.  Our guide took us to the part of the park where the "matchmakers" sit, and we saw long rows of notices posted on poles put there by parents of young adults who are not yet married, looking for a mate for their adult child!  This is an old Chinese practice and is important to parents of unmarried adult children who want to get a good match for their son or daughter.  Our guide, who is 26 years old, said the younger generation hates this process and don't like it when their parents do it, but obviously a lot of parents still attempt to arrange marriages for their adult offspring over protest!  Instead of online dating they have "park signpost dating" here!  After our walk through the park we took a local bus back to our hotel, which was fun as it got us mixing with the local Chinese.  

Tonight we have an early-ish dinner so that we can get back early and get to bed early.  We are leaving for Tibet tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM!  We have to have our checked baggage ready to leave by after dinner this evening so we're all in the throes of packing/repacking yet again for the next leg of this journey.  We've all started taking our Mountain Sickness meds because we are going to go from being practically at sea level, to an elevation of 12,400 feet when we get off the plane in Lhasa tomorrow, which can wreak havoc with the body. We're pounding down gallons of water today because being fully hydrated is important to minimize the effects of the altitude.  Its very hot and humid here again, so we're looking forward to much cooler temps in Lhasa and way less humidity.  Its going to be quite a contrast to the extremely hot temps we've been enduring so far on this trip.

I think I'll have access to the internet in Tibet, but am not absolutely sure. I also think even if we have it, it can be intermittent, so if you see no posts for a day or two, that's probably why!  If I can post, I will but not sure till I get there.  Of all the places we're going on this trip, Tibet is the most spartan and rustic.  

Today's pics include the pandas, some shots of our lunch feast and the "matchmaker section" of the local park!

Tai Chi, Village Dancing and Homestay

China Day 8 and 9 - Friday/Saturday July 26/27, 2013 - Small Wild Goose Pagoda, Tai Chi, Donghan Village Homestay and Chengdu

We have had a busy day today.  We left our Xian hotel and went first to a jade factory.  It was interesting to see the jade and to learn about it and to see artisans at work carving and polishing various pieces. Then we went to see the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, which is in Xian.  It used to be a Buddhist Temple but during the cultural revolution the statues were destroyed and removed and it is now a folk art museum and public park.  While we were at the pagoda park we got a demonstration of tai chi from a local master.  He then had us do some tai chi with him.  We were soon the local attraction as others gathered to watch us.  We must have been a comical sight since we didn't know what we were doing and we were trying to follow the master and do the movements at the same time.  I actually found it quite relaxing and meditative and can see why it is so popular.  

After we left the pagoda we went to lunch and had another regional specialty, along with the usual variety of Chinese dishes.  It was a special soup that is popular in the Chinese Muslim community of which there is a sizeable group in Xian.  Everyone gets a large bowl and a "pancake" (which looks like a thick, very white small pita) which you break into very small bits and put in the bowl. They come and take the bowl away and make soup in it with the bits of bread.  The soup is beef and various vegetables and other kinds of Chinese noodles.  When they serve it to you the bits of "pancake" have expanded and thickened sort of like dumplings.  You add cilantro, pickled garlic and chili pepper oil to the soup to flavor it.  It was absolutely delicious and very filling.  Of course, the weather today is HOT, way up in the 90s with humidity to match so we are all dripping with sweat just sitting still and downing that large bowl of soup didn't do much for the hot flashes we were all suffering from!  Truly the heat today is oppressive.  Its exhausting everyone because when you walk out of an air conditioned building its like walking into a wet wall of heat.  The pollution only exacerbates the effects.  

After lunch we headed to Donghan, the small village where we are doing our homestay.  We arrived and got parceled out to our various hosts, all of whom have homes that have a number of guest rooms that they routinely rent out to OAT groups and to local Chinese from Xian who want to come to this village for a taste of rural living and to visit the galleries of local artists who live here.  This small village is a farming village although the residents can't make a living just from the farming so many of them also have other jobs, either in Xian or self-owned businesses of some sort.  The family we are staying with is typical -  three generations living in the home, the grandparent generation working in the city and here in the village offering hospitality, the middle generation working at jobs locally or in the city and young children.  We met our hostess and made feeble attempts at conversation across the language divide.  Then we went to a day care center where the local village pre-schoolers spend the days while their parents work. They were absolutely adorable and sang songs for us, one of which was in English.  Then we took a walk through the old village, from which all the residents of this "new" village (circa 1990s) originally came, and that was a window into true rural poverty.  Run down shacks, trash everywhere no heat or cooling in the huts, truly third world.  We visited the home of an 83 year old woman who lives in one room, sleeps on a bed of brick with a mat over it, has an outside sink and outhouse.  She has lived there all her life so even though her son has tried to get her to move to the new village where he lives she won't go.  There was attic space above her "bedroom" which is the only real room in the house and the only thing remotely live-able, and our guide pointed out that her coffin is already up there, ready and waiting for when she dies.  He said she probably has the clothes that she will be buried in up there too.  The "new village" was built in the early 1990s, and the government helped fund the building of new homes that the residents all had to buy on their own for about $30000.  These homes are pretty run down and spartan by our standards but they do have air conditioning in some rooms, running water, TVs, western toilets, functional kitchens.  After the old village tour we came back to the home and rested in our air conditioned bedrooms for a short while before going down to help our host with dinner.  Another multi course meal, which we helped, (sort of!) to prepare!  We had delicious local pancakes into which you wrap a variety of the dishes that were laid out on the table including beef with vegetables, stir fried bean sprouts and other veggies, egg. It was reminiscent of moo shoo pork that I've had in Chinese restaurants at home, but way more tasty!  Then we had a noodle soup with beef broth, tofu, veggies, herbs.  Our hostess kept refilling our bowls till we realized the only way to get her to stop was not to eat anymore!  We were enchanted with the hostess' little one year old granddaughter who is absolutely adorable and whom we got to play with for awhile before we went dancing. 

After dinner we went to the community gathering place where the villagers meet every night for exercise, dancing and socializing.  That was great fun as we joined in with various line dances. The whole village was there, with lots of little kids running around and coming up to us to have us take their pictures. There were also a goodly number of middle school kids who came there to talk to us to practice their English.  We were amazed at how polite, poised and self-possessed the kids were. They came right up, introduced themselves, asked how we were and then launched into a whole bunch of questions so that they could practice their English. None of us could imagine middle school kids in the US having that degree of poise and manners and initiative to engage foreigners with such grace!

After about an hour of the dancing everyone was melting from the heat so we returned to our host homes, rinsed off in a cool down shower and then went down for the night.  Truly, the heat today was absolutely unbearable and enervating.  All you want to do is sit somewhere air conditioned because the slightest activity outside causes profuse sweating and exhaustion.  I sure hope we get into Tibet so we get a few days respite from this truly oppressive and extreme heat and humidity.  Tomorrow we fly to Chengdu, after visiting some local art galleries where villagers do painting that is known throughout China.  

Day  9 -- Last morning Donghan Village then flight to Chengdu

We spent the morning in the village, breakfasting with our hosts then doing a walking tour of the village and visiting some artists studios where local artists, one of whom has become quite famous in China, showed us their work.  One of them is a paper cutter and she took us all through an exercise where we did our own papercuts.  It was really fun!  I've included a pic of me holding mine up!  Her stuff is magnificent - really intricate and detailed. 

The guest rooms where we stayed in the village were very basic - bed and nightstand and the bathroom was a medium sized room with tile floor with toilet and shower head on wall for a rinse off shower.  Hot water was not plentiful, although after our dancing last night we were all so hot that cold showers were really fine with all of us!  The bed was the typical Chinese plank covered with sheet!  Hoo boy those things are hard!  Fortunately, the air conditioning worked wonderfully so I did sleep reasonably well notwithstanding the hard bed.  I must confess that I really don't care for Chinese breakfast.  That's the one meal of the day where I want only certain foods.  The Chinese eat the same foods for breakfast that they eat at every other meal.  Our hostess ate with us and was insistent that we keep eating more, even though most of what was there did not appeal to me at 7:30 in the morning!!  There was some toasted bread that was pretty good and hard boiled eggs, but also a pita stuffed with veggies and garlic, a corn soup, cauliflower with spices, and pickled cucumbers.  I tasted most of the dishes but didn't eat much since I just can't face most of that in the morning!  No tea or coffee, so we were all suffering caffeine withdrawal half way through the morning.  What I wouldn't give for a good cup of PG TIps right about now!    We were relieved to discover when we started our walk through the village that the temperature and humidity had gone down a bit and there was a slight breeze making things way more bearable than they were yesterday.

Donghan village is a pretty "upscale" village as Chinese rural communities go.  The houses are more spacious than many rural dwellers in China enjoy, although they are smaller than what most American families think is adequate, and they usually house several generations together.  I continue to wonder how introverts survive this communal Chinese culture!  Privacy and solitude simply are not part of the scene in Chinese life, certainly not in village life.  

After we left the village we headed to the airport for our flight to Chengdu.  We had lunch in the airport and then made our way to our gate. Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes so we had plenty of time to sit around the airport.  I found a place I could get an ice cream, which was a welcome treat after days of no sweets to speak of!!  When we got to Chengdu we came into the city and went to dinner.  We are in Sichuan province, known for its spicy foods, and we did get one spicy dish with our meal tonight, although I could have used more spice.  I think they were trying to go easy on the tourists!  

The hotel we're staying in here is quite nice and is a local Chinese hotel.  My room looks out on the balconies of an apartment building next door!  The weather here is very hot again, and exceedingly humid and I notice my AC is not keeping up with the weather outside.  Tomorrow we do the Panda sanctuary.  And we learned tonight that we most likely will get into TIbet.  Apparently they approved our request, so as of now it looks like its a go.  Could still change, but our guide is hopeful.  

I've included pics of our tai chi master, the children in the village kindergarten, me in the kitchen cutting the noodles for dinner last night, some of the children who were fascinated by us at the village dancing, me holding my paper cut and two of us with our Chinese hostess at dinner last night.

Terra Cotta Warriors and Tang Dynasty Dancing

China Day 7 - Terra Cotta Soldiers, Medicine Market and Tang Dynasty Dancing

We had another full day today.  The highlight of the day was the visit to the museum of the Terra Cotta Warriors.  We had to drive about an hour outside of the city to the site of the excavation and museum.  These terra cotta warriors date from the second century BCE,during the reign of Emperor Qinshi Huangli, the first emperor of China who reigned from 221 BCE to 210 BCE. He was a tyrant but did manage to unify China at that time and during his reign ordered the building of his mausoleum, which ultimately took 40 years to build and engaged over 700,000 laborers to accomplish it.  The terra cotta warriors are thought to be the army he believed he would need to take with him into the next life.  They were installed near the mausoleum which is still buried beneath a nearby hill.  The Chinese know its there but have not opened it yet because archeologists and scientists are trying to figure out how to open it while preserving what they will find inside.

The terra cotta warriors were discovered by a local farmer in 1974 who was digging a well on his land and happened upon these ceramic remains.  Little did he know what they would find once they started digging!  The farmer is still alive and he now works at the museum, coming every day to personally sign copies of the souvenir book that the museum sells about the exhibit.  We all purchased copies of that book which the farmer then signed for us.  

When you enter the exhibits there are three pits of warriors. The first one has the foot soldiers and infantrymen.  The second has the cavalry and the third has charioteers.  It is absolutely amazing to see these thousands of statues, all life size, all in minute detail as to costume and weaponry and all the faces individual and different. When the soldiers were first discovered they were painted very colorfully but the paint oxidized and disappeared almost instantly upon contact with the air.  Its this kind of issue that is slowing up the opening of the mausoleum itself, of which these soldiers are but a part.  We spent a good three hours at the museum as the exhibits are extensive and it takes time to get through them all.  It was exceedingly hot and humid and very polluted and hazy today, which made us all feel pretty tired and enervated as we walked the grounds.  

After the museum we went to lunch, another multi-course feast that included a new noodle dish and a demonstration by the chef of how the noodles are made, which was pretty impressive.  Then on our way back to the city we stopped at a herbal medicine wholesale market, where the herbs for traditional Chinese medicine are sold to the retail pharmacists who prepare the traditional herbal remedies for all sorts and varieties of ailments.  The market stalls sell everything imaginable that goes into traditional herbal remedies including things like ginger, and mint but also things like ants, animal testicles, lizards, frogs, and mushrooms of many kinds.  The Chinese swear by these meds, but I must admit to being a skeptic, or at least too timid to venture into taking any of them just on the "ick" factor alone!!

After our rest we went to a dinner/ show where we had a dumpling feast and then watched a performance of dances from the Tang Dynasty era.  The performance was magnificent with beautiful costumes, dancing and gymnastics and acrobatics.  

Tomorrow we check out of this hotel and go out to the country for our day in the village and our overnight homestay.  So I will be offline again until sometime Saturday when we get to Chengdu.  Saturday morning we will leave our homestay family and go to the airport to fly to Chengdu.  Tonight I've included pics of the warriors and some shots of the dance performance this evening and a shot of one of the buildings along the city wall lit up for the night.   So I'm signing off now for a couple of days, but will be back as soon as I can get an internet connection again!

Xian - History Museum, Ming Dynasty Wall, Mongolian Hot Pot and Muslim Quarter

Today was a less packed day, given that we arrived early this morning on the overnight   from Beijing to Xian.  Our local guide met us and got us to our hotel where we ate a good breakfast and then got into our rooms to shower and change.  We had the morning free to settle in and left midday for our first stop which was the Shaanxi History Museum.  It is a first class museum of the history of the many dynasties of China with very thorough and well done displays of Chinese history and artifacts from pre-history through the end of Imperial China in 1911.    Going through that museum really brings home how ancient is this civilization and how great a civilization it has been for millennia.  We Americans have no concept of a sweep of history so deep and broad as do the Chinese with literally thousands of years of complicated and complex history behind them.  

After touring the Museum we went to the Xian City Wall, one of the only remaining city walls in China.  It was built by Hongwu,the founder of the Ming Dynasty.  It is an imposing structure, 40 feet high and 8.5 miles long. We climbed up to the top of the wall and then a few of us rented bikes and rode a lot of the wall, getting great views of the city from up on high!  They have soothing Chinese music playing from loudspeakers as you traverse the wall so I kept feeling like I should be stretching out for a massage rather than pedaling my bike!  It was really fun to bike the wall though.  Pretty bumpy ride as the wall is made of bricks and they are uneven and pockmarked at this point in time so it was a bone rattling ride around the wall.  

After we left the wall, we went to dinner.   Tonight we sampled something known as Mongolian Hot Pot.  Everyone has a small bunson burner with a small pot of water which you bring to a boil.  Then they serve multiple dishes with ingredients that you put into your boiling pot.  There is a banquet table dedicated solely to sauces and spices that you mix together to create the dipping sauces.  Then as you take the food out of the pot you dip it into the sauce or various sauces to eat.  We all had a little trouble figuring out how to make a sauce we liked and we were not always successful!  We had lots of food however - beef, lamb, shrimp, crab, tofu, noodles, and many vegetables.  It was a lot of work, and many of us decided we prefer it when the Chinese chefs do the cooking and we just eat what's put in front of us!

After dinner we returned to the hotel and then walked over to the Muslim Quarter which is very near our hotel.  There are many shops and markets over there selling all kinds of foods and other goods.  The place was teeming with people as it is a lively spot for the many night markets.  I couldn't get over seeing Chinese Muslims!  Chinese women in hijab looked a little funny to me!!  I also couldn't imagine how those Muslim shopkeepers were managing to cook and sell all that food while it is Ramadan and they are fasting from dawn to sunset.  That is real discipline!

I returned to the hotel after wandering the market and was delighted to see a bar with gin, so enjoyed a G&T after many days without my nightly fix!!  All in all, a good day!  The pics tonight include a Chinese print from the museum, me on my bike on the Ming Wall, a shot of the wall as we rode it, the table set for our Mongolian Hot Pot meal and a shot of the night market in the Muslim quarter. 

Garden, Hutong, Dumplings, Temple of Heaven and Overnight Train

China Day 5 -  Garden, Hutong, Dumplings, Temple of Heaven, Overnight Train

Its been a really full day.  We had the morning free until 11:30 so several of us went to a beautiful garden near the hotel and walked around for a couple of hours. It was really lovely with a little lake, beautiful flower beds and flowering shrubs, lots of Chinese people, mostly retired, hanging out playing cards, or mah-jong and babysitting their grandchildren. In the complex there were numerous buildings reminiscent of the Summer Palace, but it was not a bit crowded and we were the only tourists there.  Everyone else was local Chinese folks.  There was a lovely Buddhist temple and a waterfall and rock formations to climb up and people were dancing and playing music.  It was peaceful and serene and very relaxing.  The weather was perfect - blue skys and sunny but not too humid this morning.  I've included a pic of me in front of the waterfall and by the lake and a lotus flower.

We had to be back by 11 so that we could check out of our rooms.  When we left the hotel we drove to a hutong near the Forbidden City, in the northern part of Beijing.  The hutongs are small neighborhoods with houses that are single story, small dwellings rather than the high rise apartments that otherwise dominate Beijing.  The hutongs represent the old way of life for Chinese - small communities where people live cheek to jowl in courtyards that comprise many families.  Toilet facilities are communal and shared and are located every couple of blocks or so. Shower facilities are also shared by many neighbors as most of the homes do not have their own bathrooms.  I did not choose to use the facilities while we were there, but traveling companions reported that not only were they the typical Asian style toilets there were no stalls - just rows of the toilets.  Obviously, the Chinese have a very different concept of personal privacy than do Americans!  We had a home cooked lunch in the home of a family that is employed by the Forbidden City to do various kinds of maintenance work.  The niece of the family is a well known artist who paints intricate and delicate pictures on bottles - perfume bottles, snuff bottles and the like. Her work was featured during the 2008 Olympics.  We had a delicious lunch, again discovering foods we had not had before, like lotus stems, which were very tasty. They cut the stems into round pieces, marinate them in the refrigerator in orange juice and then cook them. They are really tasty.  We also had a meatball dish with cucumbers that was seasoned with ginger and was really good.  They also made us fresh steamed dumplings and we then enjoyed a demonstration of how dumplings are made and we had a chance to try it ourselves. Our hosts had a small white toy poodle who came around and greeted all of us. Her ears were dyed orange!  I've included a pic. It was hilarious!  I've also included a pic of the young girl in the family who does the artwork standing in front of the house.   

After we left the hutong, we took the bus to a nearby subway station and had the chance to experience the Beijing subway to get to our next stop, which was the Temple of Heaven.   The Beijing subway is a real class act! When you go down the escalator to enter the subway you can feel the air conditioning coming at you, which felt really good on this hot humid afternoon.  The stations and trains are pristine, clean, quiet and cool.  Apparently during rush hour they are literally sardine cans with women hired to "push" people into the cars, but during the middle of the afternoon they were full but not unmanageable.  If I ever return to Beijing, I will go everywhere on the subway as it is clearly the best way to navigate the city given how horrific the traffic is all the time.

Then we went to the Temple of Heaven, a 15th century temple used by the Emperors every year on the first lunar new moon of the year to make propitiation to the gods for a plentiful harvest.  At other times of the year other special ceremonies were held there too.  Its an immense structure, very ornately painted with beautiful ceramic tile roofing.  Nowadays it is used for important public functions, like lighting of the torch for the 2008 Olympics and events of that nature.

After the Temple of Heaven we went to dinner, which was another experience of new and delicious foods.  The winner at that meal was an eggplant dish that included shrimp cooked in the eggplant pieces.  Also mooshu pork, and a unique preparation of kung pao chicken.  There was also a cabbage dish that was very good but I got a mouthful of red pepper and then couldn't taste much of the rest of the meal!!  We also had a dish that was tofu wrapped around a pork stuffing and soaked in a ginger curry sauce.  We rolled out of that restaurant more than sated and headed back to our bus and on to the train station for our overnight train ride.

As I write this I am sitting on the top bunk of my train compartment.  I got lucky and managed to get a whole compartment to myself. Everyone else is sharing with one other person. These compartments are intended for 4 people but our tour company pays for us to have the compartments for only 2 people instead of 4.  Good thing as 4 people in here would be way too close for my comfort!!  The bunks in this train are more comfortable than the bed in the hotel, much to all of our surprise!  The train station was another experience of Chinese life.  Hugely crowded, with folks rushing onto the trains to find places to sit.  Everything in China so far has been marked by crowds - actually hordes of people.  You really get a feel for what it means to be in such an enormously overpopulated nation.  Our guide came along and gave us all a small glass of Chinese red wine as we were settling into the compartments and then he came by with Chinese "fire water" a national liquor that tastes like rubbing alcohol!! Its a drink that is drunk for its effect on you rather than for taste!!  And Chinese red wine leaves much to be desired.  They've got a long way to go to compete in the global wine arena! I've included a pic of my train compartment.

Tomorrow morning we arrive in Xian and will go to our hotel to check in and get breakfast and showers before heading out for the day's adventures.  At this point I'm going to read for a short while and then crash. I'm tired after a really full day of walking in heat and humidity!

Lama Monastery, Summer Palace and Chinese Acrobats

Today we started out visiting a factory and showroom of Chinese silk rugs.  We saw how they are made and learned a lot about this amazing Chinese art.  The rugs were simply magnificent, but way too expensive for most of us to buy!  Even very small decorative ones cost multiple thousands of dollars, so we mostly just looked and drooled over them.  

After that stop we went to the Lama Monastery.  This is the biggest and most impressive Buddhist monastery in China.  It was converted in the 18th century into a monastery from its previous use as an imperial palace.  It has 5 different halls in the temple complex all housing a variety of Buddha and bodhisattva statues.  The place was absolutely packed today with visitors and devotees who were burning enormous quantities of incense in the courtyards between the various halls and then brining incense and flowers into the halls as offerings to the Buddha.  In the Wanfu pavilion which is the last of the 5 pavilions in the complex stands a stunning 55 foot sandalwood statue of the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha that will come in the future to bring peace and compassion into the world.  The statue is carved of one single piece of sandalwood, that goes up 55 feet into the air and goes down below the temple floor an additional 20 feet.  Truly, the pictures I took (on the sly as our guide said photos not allowed inside the halls, although some of us noticed folks ignoring the rule, so we did likewise!!) do not do justice to the breathtaking and awe-inspiring sight that greets you as you look up at this enormous statue.   I was struck by the vast numbers of Chinese people who were praying and making offerings to the Buddhas, given that under Communism religion was pretty much wiped out in China and as a whole modern Chinese are not particularly religious.  Our local guide, Jessica, said that there is a saying in China - when you see any temple, make an offering and offer a prayer for luck and longevity.   So many Chinese people do so even though they are not really practicing Buddhists.  This particular temple is well known and respected and people will go there to receive blessings for important happenings in their lives or before auspicious occasions "for luck" as much as anything.  This temple is in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and in one of the halls are the teaching chairs for the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, who don't go there anymore since the Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959.  

After we left the temple we went to lunch and had Chinese noodles with a sauce of tomatoes and eggs.  Reminded me that the Italians got spaghetti from China originally and, it would seem, even the idea for marinara sauce!!  We also had a number of other dishes, including a delicious sweet pastry confection with pumpkin paste inside.

After lunch we went to the Summer Palace, which is located in a series of parks on Kanming Lake.  It was the summer residence for the emperors during the days of Imperial China.  It is a beautiful complex of temples, pavilions and halls where the imperial family spent their summer months.  On the Northern shore of the lake is something called the Long Corridor, a covered walkway made of wood that overlooks the lakeshore.  It is painted with hundreds of scenes from Chinese mythology and legends.  It is absolutely beautiful.  I've included a picture of one of the paintings which hardly does justice to the beauty of the place when you look down the corridor and see all of them as far as the eye can see.  We walked along the corridor to the very end and then took a ferry across the lake back to our starting place.  The Summer Palace is a beautiful complex and one can imagine the imperial family in the days of old enjoying their leisure there during the hot summer months, with the breeze from the lake, swimming and boating and beautiful trees and flowers complementing the elegant buildings.   

After returning to the hotel for a short rest, we left for dinner and a show featuring the Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe.  They were absolutely fantastic!  The acts were superb including juggling, gymnastics, dance and the music and sound effects were cutting edge.  Spellbinding performance that seemed to fly by and it was time to go.  We then endured the endless Beijing gridlock traffic jam to return to the hotel.  At this point, I'm pretty tired, having woken again this morning at 4 AM.  I seem not to be able to adjust to China time!

The pics tonight include the Maitreya Buddha, the Lama Temple, one of the paintings in the Long Corridor of the Summer Palace and the dragon boat ferry that we took across the lake.  I've also included a stock photo of the acrobatic troupe to give you an idea of what they looked like.  Photos were not allowed there either!

This will be my last post until Wednesday morning American time.  Tomorrow morning we leave this hotel and spend the day here in Beijing.  At 8:30 tomorrow night we take the night sleeper train to Xian where we arrive Wednesday morning.  When we get to our Xian hotel I'll be back online, but after tonight its cyber black hole until then!