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The Jokhang Temple and Potala Palace
Thursday, May 5, 2005-9:50 PM
The tour group had packed our itinerary with so many things to do that Natasha and I have found little time to explore Lhasa by ourselves.
It started yesterday morning with a trip to Jokhang Temple. Xiao Dong told us so much about Tibetan history and folklore it must have taken us an hour to walk around a tiny circuit I would have finished in 10 minutes if I were on my own.
One of the best things about the Jokhang Temple is the roof where we went after we looked around the temple itself. It offers an excellent view of the Potala Palace, our destination for the afternoon.
After lunch we headed there. It's a good thing we didn't visit it the first day because climbing all those stairs right after arriving would certainly have made us sick.
We breezed through the White Palace, where the Dalai Lama ate, slept, and studied, in a few minutes. But the red Palace ended up taking us around two hours.
Next we headed to what has probably been the most disappointing part of our journey, a Tibetan medicine company. A doctor (or at least a guy in a white coat) examined Natasha be asking her a few general questions, looking at her tongue, and taking her pulse.
Two minutes after meeting Natasha, his assessment was Natasha was suffering from some ailment or disease that afflicts many women, and he recommended a some Tibetan medicine that, at first, over 300 renminbi.
When Natasha refused, he knocked the price down to 280 renminbi or so. She still declined.
When all that was finally over, we headed to the Barkhor market, the market near Jokhang Temple. I made the mistake of offering five renminbi for a piece of junk that wasn't worth one renminbi.
Originally, I reneged on my offer citing overly aggressive and dishonest tactics by the Tibetan saleswoman. She had been grabbing on to my clothes, shoving stuff in my hands, and obstructing my path to leave when I tried to get away.
But eventually I felt so guilty I just gave her the five renminbi and took the piece of junk so I could stop worrying about it.
After dinner Natasha and I finally had time to see Lhasa by ourselves. We tried, for the first time, real Tibetan food before calling it a day.
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