Our last days back in Lhasa
Trip Start
Nov 23, 2005
1
94
133
Trip End
Feb 27, 2007
Lhasa,
China
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The monks hold debates in an outside courtyard daily from 3 to 5pm. The area is a sea of burgundy robes. You can hear the chatter as you approach the courtyard. It all gets very loud and intense. It's a really neat event to watch, and hard to believe they keep this up for 2 hours. Some monks stand and face the monk or monks they are debating with. The monk standing is the one trying to prove his point. Each time he makes a point he reaches out towards the others and claps his hands loudly. This is to emphasize his point
Crowds moving through the Barkor
. The noise of this going on all over the courtyard is immense. The monks sitting will either agree or disagree with the statement the standing monk has made. We had a few hours to wander around before the debates started. We walked through the monastery grounds and the many chapels and assembly halls. We have to mention what goes on with the monks and monasteries in Tibet. There is money everywhere here. Each alter with a Buddha image or other religious figures is laden with money. It seems every possible space in the monastery has money stuffed into it. People stick it to things with the Yak wax too. We quite often see monks sorting through the mounds of money and organizing it into piles. They put it into boxes or bags. Around the Buddha images it is so thick they use shovels to scoop it up with. The monks also come into Lhasa and either walk aksing for money or sit in groups asking for money. All this seems very strange from what we saw in Southeast Asian countries. The monks there did not beg for money. I don't even think they are allowed to take money from people. We did see donations put in places in the monasteries,but nothing like the scale that we have seen here.
It seems that wealth has become known as good karma with the monks here. The monks in other countries also work or do volunteer services, we don't see the monks doing anything like that here. Lots of travelers have been making jokes about how all they do is lay around all day and count money. Sometimes we go into a chapel and see a monk sleeping on a bench. We joke he must be really tired from a hard day of money counting.
We expected to come to Tibet and see monks that were holiest and most traditional of all
Crowds moving through the Barkor 2
. Instead we have seen monks in leather jackets, dark sunglasses, wearing Rolex watches and riding motorcycles. Very disappointing. It seems many monks here have chosen it because it is an easy lifestyle for them and the true meaning behind it all has somewhat been lost. It is a shame that the whole way of the monastaries has been changed in Tibet. There used to be huge monastaries here, many with thousands of Tibetan monks. Now the Chinese government limits the amount of monks at each monastary to a few dozen or maybe a few hundred at the biggest ones. A lot of the monks are brought in from China and are not even Tibetan monks anymore. This is all to keep the numbers now and the influence of the Tibetan monks under control. Despite some of the all too modern monks, we're glad we got to come to Tibet now, particularly Lhasa. When the railway lines are completely finished they will bring another 4000 tourists per day to Lhasa, this is on top of the people already coming overland and by plane. Who knows what Lhasa will be like even a year from now. The fellow we traveled to Everest with was here 8 years ago. He could hardly stand to go to places for the second time. Areas where he was virtually alone last time, were now inundated with tour buses. The barkor area was nothing but dirt grounds with the old buildings, now it has places like Dico's chicken shamefully placed around it
Lady praying
.We spent our last few days in Lhasa wandering around and shopping for souvenirs. Our last night we did our final walk around the Barkor. As usual we were greeted with Teshi Deleks and smiles. We are really sad to leave this place. We would love to explore so much more of Tibet, but our train leaves tomorrow. Other sites like the Terra Cotta Warriors and the Great Wall are calling us too. I could see us coming back to do an extensive trip through Tibet, exploring a lot more remote areas in the country. We said our last goodbye to Lhasa and Tibet. We feel really privileged to have been able to come here. We will remember it forever, hopefully if we come back again there will be some of authentic Tibet left to see.
