Tibet and Nepal have been on my bucket list for over 30 years and this year I will finally visit both. I spent 6 days in Tibet in June and will spend 16 days in Nepal in the Fall. My tour of Lhasa, Shigatse and the mountains and lakes between was organized by Murphy Feng of Windhorse Tour of Chengdu (https://windhorsetour.com/). And, again, she provided me with an excellent itinerary, guide and driver.
Topsang, my Tibetan guide promptly presented me with a white silk Kadhak (welcoming scarf) upon our meeting and I found him to be friendly, knowledgeable, and most accommodating. In fact, he was a little too zealous in trying to protect me from the effects of altitude. I know that is his job and most of his clients are not accustomed to the rarified air of Lhasa (11,482 feet above sea level) or certainly not the 16,568 feet above sea level of the viewpoint of the Karolha Glacier we hiked up to.
Eventually, Topsang understood that I was familiar with altitude and its effects on the human body. After all, I spend my winters in my condo at 9,400 feet and the tops of the mountains I ski daily are about the altitude of Lhasa. And thru the years I’ve climbed a lot of 14 to 20 thousand foot peaks with no issues from altitude. So, his constant “slowly slowly” was wasted breath on his part.
But he was a great guide and companion for 6 days and I hope to see him again soon to visit more of Tibet. Topsang is a University graduate, part-time guide and part-time nomadic shepherd. His family are nomads raising 300 yaks and 400 sheep in the far eastern province of Tibet.
Yaks have been critical to the Tibetan culture for thousands of years. Yaks provide meat, milk, butter, clothing, material for constructing Yurts and is also the primary beast of burden in the mountains. They are well suited to grazing at high altitudes and traversing mountain trails. Sheep and goats also do well at altitude and in cold weather and provide an alternative source of protein and clothing. The remaining staples of the Tibetan diet include barley, potatoes, onions and garlic which are all grown locally.
To reach Topsang’s home village from Lhasa requires a day train ride then a 5-hour drive. His nomadic family lives in a regular house part of the year and a black tent (a waterproof/windproof tent made from tightly woven yak hair) during the grazing months in the high pastures.
Day 1
The first surprise I had was that the Lhasa airport is nowhere near Lhasa. In fact, the airport is in a totally different city and hour’s drive from Lhasa. Once we reached Lhasa, Topsang gave me a quick tour of the old city, checked me into the Yak Hotel, gave me a couple of tips for dinner, and suggested I take it easy to rest and not drink any alcohol the rest of the day to adjust to the altitude.
After assuring him I would follow his instructions I waited for him to leave the hotel and then headed over to the Dunya Restaurant and bar for lunch and a nice big mug of cold beer. The Dunya is owned by a guy from Holland and features both a Tibetan and western menu and is right next to the Yak Hotel. But the nicest feature to the place is its 2nd story veranda overlooking the main street in Lhasa’s Old Town. Perfect for catching a nice breeze and people watching.
After a tasty Yak burger, fries, and a Lhasa beer, I was off to explore Lhasa on my own for the rest of the afternoon. All total I walked over 10k in my wandering around while I rested and adjusted to the altitude. And all the walking and resting worked up an appetite so back to the Dunya I went for a nice big plate of spaghetti with meat sauce, Buttered Nan (a delicious flat bread) and a couple more cold 20oz beers on the veranda.
Day 2
Next morning Topsang met me as I finished my breakfast and we headed for the Potala Palace about 3k from the hotel. As we began walking toward the palace, Topsang began briefing me on the history and dimensions of the palace. About halfway there I think he decided that maybe the walk to the palace and then the climb to the top (650 vertical feet of stairs) would be too taxing for me so he hired us a bike-powered rickshaw to take us the rest of the way. I didn’t bother to tell him I had already walked there and back on my exploration the afternoon before.
The Potala Palace is divided into two distinct palaces – the Red and the White Palaces. The White portion of the palace was built in the 7th century by King Songtsen Gambo and the Red portion built in the 17th century by the 5th Dali Lama. The Red Palace is the portion of Potala that is the domain of religion mainly consists of living quarters, chapels, tombs, stupa chapels, and monk dormitories. And the White Palace deals with administrative matters, governance, and politics.
The 5th Dali Lama is the most sacred of the line of 14 Dali Lamas and is credited with building the Red Palace and Unifying Tibet. The red pigment of the palace is from a plant that grows on top of the mountains of Tibet called Bom that creates a red pigment when combined with juniper.
The 5th Dali Lama’s funerary stupa is the grandest in the palace. It is solid gold with 10,000 turquoise, red coral and elephant pearl (elephant pearl is from the elephant’s brain and considered by Buddhist as very sacred) inlaid.
At the time of the Chinese Liberation or Invasion of Tibet depending on your politics in 1950 7,000 monks and the Dali Lama lived and worked in Potala Palace. Today the 14th Dali Lama and most of the monks that managed to escape or were not murdered live in India with only about 300 remaining at the Palace.
After we toured the Palace we walked down to the local park to watch the locals participate in a Circle Dance (Traditional Tibetan Folk Dance). I have included photos of the Palace, Park, Circle Dancing and various street scenes.
Before I continue my travelogue, I would like to take a minute to talk about Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism was brought to Tibet in the 7th century by King Songsten Gambo. But the native population had practiced the Bon religion for centuries and resisted. It wasn’t until the end of the 8th century that two Buddhist masters from India Padmasambhava and Shantarakshita built the first monastery in Tibet and combined the teachings of tantric Buddhism with the Bon religion and Tibetan Buddhism was founded.
There are Five separate sects of Tibetan Buddhism with Gelugpa or the Yellow Hat Sect being the most popular. Master Ztsongkapa was the founder of the Yellow Sect over 1000 years ago.
One oddity is that only the Syakapa sect allows the lama to have hair and marry. And they practice tantric sex as part of their religious observances.
Saka Dowa is the most holy and sacred holiday in Tibetan Buddhism. The holiday which ran the entire month of June celebrates the Buddha Shakyamuni’s birth, enlightenment, and death month. Pilgrims from all over Tibet flock to monastery after monastery to pray, make offerings of money, yak butter, and Golden Liquid and to perform three Koras – the walking around a temple or monastery’s circumference from right to left chanting a mantra carrying a rosary or Prayer wheel. My six day visit just happened to be during the climax of Saka Dowa for 2019.
The offerings of Yak butter and the golden liquid are deposited in large candle bowls to both make a physical offering to the gods as they ask for favors and to keep the candles burning to light the way for their dead loved ones to pass thru the darkness to the next life.
Prayer wheels, rosaries, and prayer flags are all central to the Buddhist pilgrim’s routine.
The prayer wheel looks like a coffee or tuna can with a stick thru the middle. The inside of the drum is covered with Buddhist scripture and the pilgrim will rotate the can on the stick as he recites his mantra while performing three Koras around the monastery. The rosary performs the same purpose as the prayer wheel and you see lots of people carrying and fondling the beads as they recite their mantra.
You will see prayer flags strewn all over mountain passes, stupas, monasteries. They are comprised of five colors repeated in the same series. The red flag represents fire, the white the wind and clouds, green represents water, blue the sky and yellow the earth.
After watching the traditional circle dancing in the park and lunch we next visited the Sera Monastery the second largest in Tibet and founded in 1419. The Monastery has an Assembly Hall, Three Colleges and thirty-three houses – none of which we saw. Our purpose for visiting Sera was to watch the monks debate.
The debate takes place outside in an open-air shaded courtyard once a week. And the way the debating works is the young monks will be paired off and debate Buddhist scripture and doctrines. I admit the entire process confused me and led me to totally misunderstand what was going on. I’ve attached several photos of groups of young monks in what looks like heated arguments. You will see one monk standing the other sitting. The one standing looks quite agitated slapping his hands together vigorously and yelling at the seated monk. And the seated monk seems to be responding in a very quiet and measured tone.
Turns out that the standing monk is not angry at all, nor is he making a declarative statement. The standing monk is asking the seated monk about a point of Buddhist doctrine or scripture and he winds up like a baseball pitcher and slaps his hands together as he asks the question for emphasis. And the seated monk is explaining the doctrine. This is how they learn the scripture and how to articulate doctrine.
The entire process is totally foreign to anything I have ever seen and if Topsang hadn’t been there to explain things to me I would have left there with a totally erroneous interpretation of what I had witnessed. According to Topsang, every Monastery devotes one afternoon per week to this kind of Q and A and every monk participates both as a questioner and responder sharpening their rhetorical skills and understanding of Buddhist teachings.
Day 3
Day 3 in Lhasa and we were visiting two more monasteries. First stop was the Jokhang Monastery in the morning and then the Drepung Monastery in the afternoon. The Jokhang Monastery predates the Potala by several decades and was built in the early 7th century by King Songstan Gambo in the heart of old Lhasa.
The most important statue in the Monastery is the one of Shakyamuni at age 12. The statue was made in India and given to China as a gift. When King Songstan Gambo married a Chinese Princess, the statue was brought to Lhasa as part of her dowry.
Inside the monastery is a labyrinth of halls and chapels filled with hundreds if not thousands of statues and images of Buddha. In the meeting hall sits a large throne covered with a gold silk covering – this is the throne of the 14th Dali Lama currently living in exile in India.
After lunch, we drove about 10k out of town to the Drepung Monastery. This is one of the largest monasteries of the Gelupa (Yellow Hat) Sect. It was built in 1416 by Jamyang-Choje-Tashi-Phlden and before the “Great Liberation” over 10,000 monks resided within its massive walls making it one of the largest monasteries in Tibet.
There are six main temples – Garden Palace, Tsochen, Ngakpa, Losaling, Gomang nd Dyeyang. The most important in these temples are the image of Maitreya, Yamantaka, Mitrukpa, Sutra-Kangyour with golden letters, thangkas silk scrolls, tomes of ancient Buddhist scriptures and countless golden butter lamps. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed inside the temples so there are only photos of the exterior of the temples themselves but no relics.
After a day of exploring the two monasteries, Topsang left me on my own for dinner and any other trouble I might like to create. After a quick bite, I walked back down to the Potala Palace to catch the sunset from an elevated perch. Photos are attached of the sun setting, the Palace from a different angle than the morning before, and a little park and lake at twilight reflecting both man-made architectural art as well as a beautiful skyscape of puffy white clouds on a blue canvas of evening sky.
Day 4
Next morning, we were off for our long drive to Shigatse driving over and stopping at the Gambala Pass, Lake Yarndrok Tso (one of three sacred lakes of Tibet), Gyantse Town, Pekor Chode Buddhist center, the 35meter high Kumbum Stupa containing 100,000 statues and murals of Buddha and a stop to hike up a short ways to view the Karolha Glacier.
During the drive over the pass I saw the Tibetan Mastiff breed of dog for the first time, rode my first Yak, and took tons of photos of mountains, glaciers, lakes, fields of yellow flowers which the Tibetans use for making oil, and villages dotted with ancient stone houses.
After I checked into my hotel and grabbed a quick dinner I came across more circle dancers in a nearby park. I spent several hours enjoying the traditional music and watching the dancers.
Day 5
Next morning, we visited our final monastery – Shigatse’s Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. The Tashi Lhunpa was founded in 1447 by Gedun Drupa the first Dali Lama. The Tashi Lhunpa is a Yellow Hat Sect monastery. The most significant treasure is the tallest sitting statue of Maitreya Buddha in the world. The statue is made of an alloy of copper and gold. Additional, beautiful items include Banchan Lama’s Stupa, the golden stupa of the 10th Dali Lama, congregation halls, chapels, and too many sacred and cultural relics to list. This monastery is the seat of the Panchen Lama linage. Photos attached.
And after a long six hour drive back to Lhasa along the Northern Friendship Highway following the scenic Brahmaputra River I was back for one final night in Lhasa before flying on to my last stop on my Southern China excursion – Xi’an (home of the famed Terra Cotta Warriors).
And yes, the roof of the world was everything I had imagined – beautiful mountains, glaciers, lakes, rivers and grasslands dotted with herds of yaks, sheep, goats, and a few horses and cows at the lower elevations. The stone buildings of the old cities and villages are like a time capsule preserved for hundreds of years. And most Tibetans still dress, worship, and live as they have for centuries. The land is harsh but the people are friendly and reflect the gentle calm of their Buddhist roots. All in all, an excellent place to spend a week or month refocusing your priorities.