Tibet!!
As our plane approached Tibet, we bounced around through strong turbulence. Suddenly, the plane emerged smoothly into clear skies and the snow-capped mountains stretched as far as we could see. Stunning!
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| From Approaching Lhasa |
Our local guide, Chum Zhun, greeted us at the Lhasa airport with white prayer scarves. Later, we saw similar scarves tied on various statues in the temples as offerings. As we drove into the city, we passed rocky mountains and parched countryside. She explained that the region was suffering from a drought.
Cath and I immediately felt the effects of the altitude. Lhasa sits 3,490 metres (11,450 feet) above sea level, and we could walk only a few steps before feeling winded. Chum Zhun encouraged us to take it easy and acclimate this first night, so we had a simple dinner at our traditional Tibetan hotel, and then we ventured out for a poke around the neighborhood.
About a block from our hotel, we watched hundreds of Buddhist pilgrims walk the perimeter of the 1300-year-old Jokhang Temple, one of Tibet’s holiest shrines. Nomads and farmers from all over Tibet make the pilgrimage to Lhasa to walk prayerfully around both the temple and the spectacular Potala Palace, located on a nearby hillside. Dressed in colorful ethnic clothing, they often twirl a prayer wheel – an engraved cylinder that rotates on a stick – as they walk. Some pilgrims make the circumnavigation slowly, prostrating as they go. Wearing pads on their knees and hands, they bow to the temple, fall to their knees, push themselves onto their stomach and rise to start again. We stared, fascinated, for a while before breathlessly shuffling back to our hotel.
Our hotel room was stifling, and the A/C was broken. Exhausted and oxygen-deprived, we battled with a rattle-y old fan and even tried to fix it with a hair scrunchie before finally calling the front desk to request a new one. Fortunately, it worked.
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