I lay down to take a nap yesterday afternoon, fully intending to get up, wander around and have dinner. I didn’t wake up until 5:30 this morning!

I had breakfast at the hotel buffet, which was fine but didn’t hold a candle to the Hilton’s in Beijing. There are mostly American and European tourists here, of a particularly annoying self-important breed. Lots of Gore-Tex and hiking boots (clearly brand new) and overly-loud discussions of prior exploits and advice for altitude sickness. I’m lucky that the altitude doesn’t seem to be affecting me, beyond getting winded just jogging up a couple of flights of stairs – but these folks made me feel slightly ill.

I met LhacBa and our driver at 10. It rained hard until about 3 – it’s the rainy season. We went first to the Norbulingka – the summer palace – founded by the 7th Dalai Lama in 1735. The 13th Dalai Lama built three more palaces and the present Dalai Lama built the last one in 1956. Three years later, His Holiness escaped to Nepal from this palace, with 30,000 Tibetans holding off the Chinese army. Unfortunately, the entire complex was heavily damaged. I’ll leave the details to the guidebooks (I’m using Lonely Planet’s and like it a lot).

It was everything aesthetically that I’d imagined. Most interesting was the present Dalai Lama’s New Summer Palace. It has a lot of the original furnishings, including a console radio, his mother’s bathroom, his audience room, and many prayer rooms. The palaces are protected by the United Nations (thank you!) and there are seals on the cabinets to prevent them from being opened. I was shocked that the thousands of tourists clomp through the rooms with wet feet on the original (and gorgeous) Tibetian rugs! On the whole, everything here is very relaxed: people hang out with the monks on their seats behind the cordons, nothing is protected well yet everyone seems to behave.

The Norbulingka

One of the monks was a friend of LhacBa’s and he gave me some cheese to eat. It was very odd, like no cheese I’ve ever had: slightly sweet yet sour like yogurt, hard but in a shape you might make with a cheese wiz spray can. I was a bit nervous about eating it, but certainly didn’t want to offend a monk, so I hate half. He had a kitten on his chair.

Some of the guides are Chinese who don’t know, or choose not to tell, the correct history of the Tibetian sites. Monks are forbidden to correct them.

After the Norbulingka, we went to have lunch at the New Mandala Restaurant, a Nepalese place with a good view of the Barkhor – a square and market in the middle of Lhasa. It was just like home – vegetable curry, dahl, rice and lassie. LhacBa knows the servers at the restaurant and there was lots of good-natured teasing. One of the waitresses sang randomly (and beautifully) as she worked. LhacBa also, throughout my trip, would sing as we walked.

The most interesting thing was watching the stream of people of every type go by, including mothers, grandmothers, monks, nuns, tourists (not many of those today due to the hard rain), and the soldiers. The most unsettling things were the machine-gun equipped soldiers and cameras on the roofs – the intensity of the scrutiny increased after unrest in 1998 and 2008 (I hope that link is good, it’s blocked here). I should mention that taking photos of the soldiers is prohibited. As is taking photos inside the monasteries (a rule I understand, respect and intend to follow).

Tibetian Baby on a Mother's Back

Soldiers policing in Grey Raincoats

Prayer Flags and Machine Guns over Barkhor

We zoomed around the Barkhor due to the rain. I wanted to buy an umbrella, but when we stopped at a stall with a few and asked the price, she said 70 yuan and we walked away – LhacBa said the price should be 25 and she was trying to cheat me. Farther on, near the end of our circuit, he borrowed one from another merchant who was a friend of his. I hope he took it back later.

We spent quite a while in the Jokhang. Built starting in the 640s (I didn’t forget a 1 in front of that), it was desecrated in the Cultural Revolution, but has been undergoing restoration since 1980. In front of the Temple many pilgrims prostrate themselves. Inside are a series of chapels with many statues of various Buddhas, from across the ages. All have offerings of butter lamps, water infused with incense, flowers, fruit, and money strewn before them. There are riches from benefactors from Taiwan, Mongolia, and even China throughout. Tourists mingle with praying pilgrims.

Butter Lamps

Prostrating Pilgrims

Mountains over Jokhang Temple

We had extra time and attempted to see the local carpet factory, forgetting that it’s Sunday and therefore it was closed. So I went back to the hotel for a brief rest before dinner.

LhacBa, his cousin and I went to the Shangrila for dinner, well known for it’s very hoaky but charming performance of Tibetan opera. It’s a very typical folk style of singing and dancing, not opera as westerners would think of it. There was a buffet where I got my first traditional Tibetan food – bits of barley flour fried in yak butter and brown sugar, rice fried with ginseng (both were good but very sweet and rich), barley beer (yuck) and butter tea (very strange; it’s oily).

We walked to and from the restaurant through the Tibetan part of Lhasa, which is completely different from the Western part of the city. The population of the city itself is about 250,000, up from about 100,000 25 years ago. Although the official statistics put the Chinese population at roughly 12%, it is clearly more like half. The Tibetan area is like other old cities with narrow winding streets.

Typical Street Scene

Line of Rickshaws Waiting to Take People Through Giant Puddle

Furniture Shop

Oldest Nunnery in Tibet

Typical Street

People live in compounds of 30-40 apartments, with an extended family living in each apartment. On the way home, LhacBa invited me to his place to meet  his wife, baby, and Auntie, who is a nun.

The apartments are a series of small rooms, with low ceilings. There was a small chapel, just big enough for a small bed, decorated with Buddha statues, traditional paintings, etc. where Auntie spends her days praying. I was welcomed in the living room, where a long bench covered with cushions and Tibetan rugs served as a couch and seating for a dining table. The walls and all the furniture was covered with traditional Tibetan decoration. Although small, it felt very warm and comfortable. I met LhacBa’s charming and beautiful wife, 2-month-old baby, and Auntie. The level of hospitality was not to be believed. I was offered tea, the same sweet yak cheese that the monk gave me in the morning, and chewing gum (LhacBa’s mother runs a small concession selling chewing gum, drinks, etc.). One sip of tea and my glass was refilled. While drinking I couldn’t help but think about the fact that water needs to be boiled for 10 minutes here to kill all of the bacteria, because it boils at a lower temperature due to the altitude. But there was no way I wasn’t going to drink that tea and eat that cheese!

Tibetan Cheese

When it came time to leave, huge handfuls of cheese, and more chewing gum were thrust upon me. We stopped at the mother’s shop on the way back to the hotel so I could say goodbye to his wife (she had left mid-visit, with Auntie caring for the baby) and meet his mother. It was a wonderful visit and I’m very grateful for the family’s generosity.