Lhasa and the Potala Palace

Lhasa, the spiritual, cultural, historical, and “political” capital of Tibet, sits at an altitude of approximately 3,700 meters above sea level. I recently learned the air contains only about 60% the oxygen as regular air. For most of the first twenty-four hours, I was beat–tired, short of breath, headache presumably from the lack of oxygen, and heat-exhausted, given that we were much closer to the sun with much less air between us and it.

The city of Lhasa is in fact, a city, with a population of around 400,000. The trans-Tibetan-Plateau-express, as I mentioned, was built less than two years ago, and since construction began, the size of Lhasa had more than doubled. I’m not convinced, despite the big billboards praising the Beijing government for improving the lives of Tibetans, that the local citizens wanted this railroad. To a large extent, it seems a mechanism to open up Lhasa and Tibet to tourism–both Western dollars and Chinese citizens, as well as to encourage more loyal CCP members to emigrate to Tibet and settle.

Tibet is one of China’s provinces, although it exists as an autonomous region, with some special governance rules applying (hence all government markings with the notation “Tibet Autonomous Region”). During the course of history, Tibet has been independent, or in a relatively autonomous relation with China. After the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the Communist government eventually “liberated” (took control) of Tibet and established a figurehead government in the mid 1950's, about the same time the current Dali Lama went into exile. I will cover more of this in a separate essay.

Politics and conflict aside, Lhasa was both impressive and utterly depressing. Depressing because, although some of the main streets sported the latest fast food restaurants and clothing stores (although no McDonalds), it is clear that Lhasa is much, much less developed than the Chinese cities we previously visited. The mountains and the clear air were beautiful, but the fact we were sitting on a desert didn’t help. On the flip side, Lhasa is home to, in my opinion, one of the most impressive human structures in history–the Potala Palace.

Built in the mid 1600's, the Potala Palace serves as the now-defunct seat of government, cultural center, religious capital, and national repository for Tibet. Much like the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the Potala Palace immediately stood out from the rest of Lhasa as we drove from the airport, standing tall above any other structure in the city. With approximately one thousand rooms, split into the “White Palace” and “Red Palace” (built several years later as an add-on), this is easily the most impressive looking structure in thousands of miles, a UNESCO world heritage site, and an unofficial member of the “new seven wonders of the world.”

Our tickets were for noon, so after shopping on the “infamous” Barkhore street (which had both Chinese and Tibetan products for a) much higher quality, and b) much cheaper), we entered the palace. We first went through a metal detector, which was some fun to watch my friend Robert try and get his recently purchased sword through. Our next task: climb up to the top, which, as you can see, was not that low to the ground. Stopping every two minutes to gasp for air helped, though.

Inside the palace was what seemed like the complete cultural history of Buddhism and Tibet. In room after room, we saw paintings depicting the past and present of Buddhism, from recreations of the first visit of a Dalai Lama to the Chinese emperor to stylized images of ancient myths. Along the back walls of many rooms, housed in the world’s largest bookshelves, lay thousands and thousands of scrolls and books housing the holy texts, recreated time and time again. No photographs allowed inside, of course, although one of the more pervasive elements, the distinctive smell of melting yak butter, could not be reproduced graphically anyway.

The Potala Palace also serves as a tomb, of sorts, for past incarnations of the Dalai Lama. Instead of being housed in wood coffins, they are housed in a “stupa,” which is the term for the traditional Buddhist burial . . . thingie. (Object, I guess?). Although the earliest stupas were made from mud and clay, the Dalai Lama rates a slightly more ornate chamber. Housed inside the Potala Palace are stupas made of literally one half tones of gold, with diamonds, sapphires, and other precious jewels encrusting the outside. Multiply this by the thirteen Dalai Lamas, of which at least three stupas were on view, and that’s a lot of wealth right there. On the way out, we passed by countless Tibetan weavings, sculptures, and of course, Buddha statues, and the walk back down for most of us didn’t seem as strenuous as the walk up (of course, that could be because we had gravity on our side).

That evening was another fantastically entertaining look at Tibet, in the form of a good old fashioned dinner show. After a restful afternoon, we climbed on the bus and drove to the–I kid you not–the “Mad Yak” restaurant. Dinner consisted of either Chinese or Tibetan, a real thriller of a choice, I tell you, if there ever was one. With such stellar options as yak youghurt, sheep lung, and yak-meat-dumplings, well, I just feasted the night away. The highlight of the evening was the show, a veritable platter of different Tibetan traditional and contemporary dance styles. The troupe was maybe twenty people in total, half men, half women. Some of the dances used all 10 of each gender, some used one person and four in two yak costumes, as was the case with the first dance. Others included courting dances, harvesting dances, and what can only be described as the Tibetan equivalent of the Backstreet Boys. The evening ended as the dancers spilled off the stage, and corralled as many of us unsuspecting American students to dance around the floor with them.

The night in Tibet was, as one can imagine, fairly dull, as everyone was moving sluggishly from both the pace of the day and lack of oxygen. The next day, we woke up, dragged ourselves to the small, but functional, Tibet Airport, and flew on to our next exciting destination, Chengdu.