Hubei Lhasa

... trek we have also been astonished as to the number of<br>people we see on the highway walking. Tibetans are in good shape<br>because for the most part they walk from village to village &#8211; some<br>will try to hitch rides on buses, trucks, and tractors but most just<br>put on their basket book bags and start hoofing. And the distances<br>between these villages and towns aren't short &#8211; we would guess that<br>the average distance is about 20km. As we make our ...

... lives up to all the hype. <br><br><br>The first site I visited, and the one which I was most looking forward to visiting, was the Potala Palace. It stands in the center of the city of Lhasa and it took my breath away. I was surprised at how big the whole complex is. The bottom half is painted half, with red buildings on the top. It looks like a giant fortress. It was the home to Tibet's Dalai Lama. It was packed full ...

... tacky) western city and drop several thousand religious pilgrims fresh from a mountain village right in the middle of it. Some of these people spend months literally crawling across the country to reach the major monasteries and shrines. I've never seen anything like it.<br><br>Anyway, I don't feel like writing much so here are the pics! <br> <br><br>

Wunderbar geschlafen, kein Kopfweh oder sonstige Problemchen oder Wehwehchen ;-)<br><br>Los gings um 10 - ca. 60 km nach Ganden dem Gründungskloster der "Gelbmützen".<br>Die Anfahrt war bis kurz vor das Kloster flach, dann gings die letzten 4 km in Serpentinen hoch zum wunderbar gelegenen Kloster.<br><br>Dieses hatte ursprünglich ...

... of Yellow Hats. One statue had lots of money around it, it is Sakya Yeshe, the founder of the monastery. There is also a throne of the 13th Dalai Lama and people were coming up and placing their foreheads on the throne. There are also some stupas and a 1000 armed Buddha. I purchased a black and white wool bracelet (yak?) for 5 yuan ($1). It is supposed to be a symbol of Buddhism. <br><br>When we went outside the gong started to call monks to debate. We went to an outer ...

... an, angeblich werden sogar Emails gecheckt). Es wirkte auf jeden Fall so, dass es einfach nur eine Zurschaustellung der Macht ist um den Tibetern zu zeigen, dass sie immer beobachtet werden (wahrscheinlich wie frueher in der DDR!) Im Hotel angekommen, war es dieses dann wenigstens eine positive Ueberraschung. Diesmal war unser Zimmer auch voll intakt und nach einer kurzen Pause konnten wir uns noch ein bisschen in der Altstadt (die dann doch noch wie das alte Lhasa wirkte ...

... of the 1950s with the monks left either slaughtered or escaped to India. The heart of this monastery is the beatifully gloomy assembly hall. The smoky air is cut by rays of lights from the small rooftop windows which illuminate the red robes on the monks' benches and their yellow hats (hence the name "Yellow Hats", or Gelugpa for the prevailing of the 4 Tibetan Buddhist Sects, of which the Dalai Lama is the head). There's a beautiful statue of a 1000 eyed and ...

... deep and sometimes they went on forever. A labour intense project, but I guess it must work. There is a paved road that runs sometimes parallel to the train with a few trucks on it. Seen lots of motorcycles going through the fields, people sitting in the fields tending their flocks, seen some plowing with a yak, some tractors pulling a small wagon behind that they were loading up the stooks of wheat with a pitch fork. Sometimes you could not even see the wagon as it was ...

... but it hadn't worked for the girl, named Ona. She had been dumped by her boyfriend and then robbed at a hotel while trying to hitchhike back to Lhasa. She had lost her passport, her money, and her faith. Some Hindu pilgrims were feeding her. When we drove her back to the hotel, the housemaids denied everything, called her a *****, and then threw fistfuls of pebbles at her. We dropped Ona at a police station and, as we pulled away, I gave her $200 in an envelope, with my return address ...

... sign of continuing nervousness over being identified by authorities as a troublemaker. Deji said it will take at least three years for business to return to normal, and that half of the hotel's employees had changed jobs or stayed home since March. Tibet had 4 million visitors in 2007, up 60 percent from the previous year, Xinhua reported earlier this year. Tourism revenues hit $687 million, accounting for more than 14 percent of the economy. Beijing Olympics 2008: Tibet reopens ...