No way was I posting this in China

31 May 2010     9:59pm     Lhasa

Today was quite the adventurous day!  After getting ready and such, our van came to pick us up to go to Potala Palace, which is the residence of the Dalai Lama (except for the current one, obviously).  The palace is huge- it has over 1,000 rooms and towers over the city.  It's quite imposing.  The palace has 2 sections, red and white.  The white palace is closed to the public, as it has been taken over by the government.  Apparently it currently houses the fire department and police.

It was quite a hike up to the red palace, which houses most of the religious relics and where people are allowed to go.  I think this is the first time that the altitude has really hit me.  I definitely noticed it tonight climbing up the stairs of our hotel (sad that it makes me short of breath, I know).  Anyway, the palace.  It almost seemed neverending, the number of rooms we went through.  We have an excellent guide, who explained so much to us.  I learned almost too much about Tibetan Buddhism today.

As tours are only allowed to be an hour long, we eventually came back down where we met Tony and his associate Tenzen, who was to be our guide for the rest of the day.  They took us to a very local place for lunch- apparently foreigners just don't eat there.  We had what I think may be the second-best meal of the trip: Yak meat soup with noodles.  It was so good, but ridiculously spicy!  I ended up having to get a less spicy bowl instead.

We had some brief time to ourselves before we went to Jokhang Temple, which is within walking distance of our hotel.  Tony's associate Tenzen was our guide for this, as our regular guide was busy securing border crossing permits for us.  The temple was also amazing.  It is a functioning temple, although not up to its previous capacity.  There are only a little over 100 monks left in the monastery, as opposed to the 3,000 (I think- can't remember exactly) that used to occupy it before the Cultural Revolution.  The temple is way smaller than the palace, but Tenzen kept talking about everything so it felt equally as long.  One cool part though was that we got to see the ritual for re-doing the floor.

We got to go to the roof, which gave us some good views of the market below as well as Potala Palace.  Seeing as how we were all temple-d out, we left to enjoy the next couple of free hours shopping.  I picked up some cool stuff.  The best part is bargaining.  Basically, if you pay the asking price for anything at an outdoor market, you're an idiot.  My bargaining skills are far from perfect, but I think I managed quite well.  It's much easier when you're not completely in love with something or if you can find it elsewhere- then, you're less likely to settle for a higher price.

After a couple of hours we met back up with Tenzen, who took us to a 'traditional' Tibetan dinner with dancing.  It basically just felt like culture on display.  I think I would have been ok with it if the dancing were more of a show, and not just an accompaniment to dinner.  Plus, they had Chinese food alongside Tibetan food, which doesn't seem very traditional to me.

The food was alright- I thought lunch was better.  I did try two new things, though- barley beer and yak butter tea.  The beer was eww, but then again I hate beer so that should be expected.  It wasn't as bad as other beers that I've tried in the States though.  The yak butter tea was interesting- it mostly tasted like super salty melted butter, mixed with a little bit of water.  Weird, but not wholly intolerable.

The dancing was very interesting.  Their first dance was a yak dance, featuring a man and two yaks (obviously people dressed as yaks).  They were pretty crazy, and then started coming into the audience, 'attacking' people.  The look on Dee's face as the yak came at her is priceless.  The other dances were good, but the yak one sticks out as the most memorable.  At the end, the dancers formed a giant chain, dancing around the tables and getting people to join them.  Dee was the only one out of our group who would go.  I'm still a little gun-shy about spontaneous dancing in public.  If I'm dancing in public, I best know what's going on beforehand.

We got dropped back off in front of our hotel for our last night in Lhasa.  So, of course we went shopping.  Well, I browsed- I'm almost out of cash for the time being.  It was still enjoyable to check out everything on our street, as we hadn't been able to explore it much before.  As it was getting dark and stalls were closing, I headed back to the hotel to pack everything up and get some rest.

I picked up on some of the history of Tibet/China and the tensions between the two.  Our first guide didn't seem to want to talk much about it, stating that as long as people didn't argue that Tibet belongs to China, things were ok.  Our second guide was a little more candid.  He seemed to have a more negative view of China, many times mentioning the bad changes that occurred after the Cultural Revolution.  He also mentioned that more and more, Tibetans need to learn Chinese in order to survive.  Soldiers don't speak Tibetan, nor do they want to learn.  New Lhasa is dominated by Chinese, and many Chinese tourists come to Tibet.  Basically, in order to get a job, Tibetans need to learn Chinese.  It's pretty scary to see this cultural annihilation in progress.  I think if the Chinese have their way, Tibet will be limited to 'cultural tours' and kitschy items.

Observation: Tibetan food stains do not easily wash out of clothes.

Observation: I'm pretty sure we heard the Tibetan Evanescence on the train.

Spaghetti tacos!

31 May 2010     7:57am     Lhasa!

We finally made it to Lhasa.  The train ride was definitely a unique experience, but I think my maximum limit is 48 hours on a train.  I was starting to go a little crazy.  Yesterday, our train pulled in at 6:30pm and we were promptly notified by an angry train attendant yelling at everyone, I’m assuming, to get off the train.  In all the confusion I left my scarf on my bed.  I’m so pissed.  Hopefully I can find a similar one to replace it, but I doubt it.  If all else fails, I might as well try eBay.

    Once we left the station we met our tour guide, who immediately recognized us and started waving – possibly because we were the only white people leaving the train station.  We had a lovely drive from the train station to Lhasa proper and saw a lot of soldiers everywhere.  Our guide warned us not to take any pictures of them or of any military locations – generally a good idea no matter where you’re traveling, but it definitely seems like a good idea here.  They look beyond angry, like they would shoot you in a heartbeat.

    We finally arrived at our hotel, which is set back in a little plaza.  Unfortunately the plaza is off a street full of stalls selling all sorts of goods.  We’re going to go broke just staying on our street!  There’s a tiny internet café in the plaza that apparently is still running dial-up.  Needless to say, internet access is going to be basically zero this week.  At the hotel we finally met Tony, who is pretty nice.  However, doing math and handling money don’t seem to be quite his thing, as we spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how much we owed him.  I wasn’t doing too well at this point as I was hungry, tired, and upset over my scarf.  Finally we got to go up to our rooms.  The good thing about the hotel is that the rooms are huge.  The rest of it (and it seems to be just my opinion) is pretty dingy-looking.  Clean, but just old and dingy.

    After some people took quick showers, we went to a restaurant across the street for dinner.  It had a whole bunch of different food- Chinese, Indian, Nepali, Western, as well as Tibetan.  I ordered a chocolate milkshake to drink, which ended up basically being Yoo-Hoo.  Katie, Keesler, and Ceci ordered Indian food, I ordered Mexican (tacos- which were oddly listed under ‘Spaghetti’).  Lesson learned- don’t order one country’s food in another country.  It just isn’t right.

    After such a long day, some of the girls went to use internet but I went straight upstairs to go to sleep.  Best sleep ever!  Now this morning we’re getting ready to go to breakfast, and then start the first day of our tour at 10:30am.