johansvennung(臺灣)

After more than one day in Lhasa you really start to disslike (hate) china. They remind me of israel, in the way they isolate some people, who they dislike. Treating tibetians like cattle many times...
China isolates the tibetians by refusing them passport.
I spoke with a guy who wanted education, and spent 40 days walking to Nepal (illegally), and further on to india to study.

The streets in Lhasa are full of stores (atleast in the center)

Due to political reasons Mcdonalds and pother famous stores had left Tibet, but there are some brands...Tico's is one of them serving chicken hamburgers

This is the center square in Lhasa, soldiers marshing around and around.
Some prayers are sliding on the ground, it looks interesting...
Others are waling clockwise round the temple that is near the square.

This is Potala Palace, super old...and big...the Dalai Lhama lived there when he was welcome here...(you can also see the chinese flag on the top)

people also walk clockwise around this palace...some have sticks in their hands with a chain that they can turn arond...
t
it was a high palace, we needed to go up to enter...

many old people were exhausted after all climbing...it was around 5 degs outside i think...

from the top you could see another big square...

this dark image is a toilet used long time ago...perhaps by some dalai lama

there was a nice lake on the backside of the palace.

kids in this country dont use dipers...instead they have a gap in their pants, so that they can shit whenever and wherever...

Here are some other sliders again..it is comon among the whole population to do this...

After trha palace visit we went to the center square to check some holy places...(2 military groups were patrolling at this time)

Near the temple sliders were going up and down...but on mattresses...

They also had a chimney where they burned some papers...
There were alot of people queuing to enter the temple, tibetians spent about 2 days queuing. There were some strange police there shouting at them...
it was an interesting temple, and many tourist groups were there...

When we were done, we found that the main entrance was closed...sine after 16, no tibetians can enter.only tourists....

It is srtange that so many people always walks arong the building round and round...
(as one can see most people are walking towards the pic)

Around the square, all day long, snipers were on tyhe roof tops...

And soldiers walking with guns...
while we were heading to a restaurant...

I tried Lhasa beer, it is very soft...only 3.3 percent alcohol...i guess it is ok for asians who are more sensitive to these kind of drinks...

I also found some local drink..."champ" or something was the name..tasted like vinagre, or sour cream.

I took a local lime cake for dessert.

Then we went to Potala palace, since we had heard that it would be cool with light spotted on it...but there were no lights..instead we saw other lights near a pond at the square near the palace...

Everywhere we could hear fireworks...and some times even see them..since this was the 15th day after the chinese new year...which is a time to celebrate here in the chinese countries...
The day after we first went to a museum...

The museum deals a little bit about tibets histiry concerning items such as pots, jade and animals...(it is behind the trees...)

Then we went to a monastery (the second largest in tibet).
Some bell rang when we stood at the courtyard...

....and suddently hundreds of munks entered the building in front of us...it was time for prayers...

Just like the temple down town, there were many tibetians queuing to enter another temple, and to pray....
They usually sacrifice melted butter ot cents of the chinese yuan...

After this temple visit we went back to town to a restaurant...it was the last lunch with te group...most people will take the plane back to kathmandu, me and 3 others will go to china by train...
It is the most useless train system in the world they have here (or the info they provide), I still havnt found anyone who knows when i will reach Chengdu in china...which means that i dont dare to buy any flicght ticket back to taiwan...

This is the yard of our hotel, it is nice and old style...

I also managed to finish my Bhutan Whisky that was leaking in my bag before...it was ok, tasted like a johnny walker
The upcoming 2 days I will spend on a train. At the highest railroad in the world according to rumors...
The only thing that remains to do here is to buy some local stuff that I can waste...as I always do when Im leaving a country...