Our guide & driver tag team met us at the hotel this morning at 9am. Today was to be mostly sightseeing around Lhasa with the Potala, Sera Monastery, and a convent all on the menu. I struck me how religious of a culture it must be considering pretty much all of the major landmarks are, well, monasteries and convents.
Most of the guide books you read warn of the Potala being a bit underwhelming once you are inside, especially considering how majestic it appears from the exterior. It has a pretty dominating presence over the city, the largest building on the highest point. You can see it from anywhere in the surrounding plane as long as you”ve got a relatively unobstructed view. As the books say, though, the interior is less thrilling. Don’t get me wrong – there is much to see: astonishing numbers of buddhas, stupas, tombs, paintings, etc, but the rooms are generally tiny and less than 20% of them are open to view. I guess the exterior view just sets up tremendous expectations. I was able to get a fantastic panorama from all of Lhasa from the roof. If you look closely, right in the middle you’ll notice the tiny core of Old Lhasa, with the new Chinese influenced “New Lhasa” being rapidly built out around it.
(If you’d like a full res copy of this, let me know via the contact page. Original is too big too post ~10000px by 2000px)
Next up was a short drive to north Lhasa to see the Sera Monastery. This was interesting and a bit more active as it is still a functioning monastery and less of a museum. Monks milling about everywhere, some praying but most working on the various buildings around the compound.
After lunch we visited an active Buddhist convent near the Jokhang. This time we got to sit in on a group chant/prayer session in the main temple. A hundred or so nuns sat lining the rows of padded benches in front of the main buddha figure with intricately bound scripture books in hand. For each verse, one near the front would lead off the group with the rest quickly following along, joining. Another nun near the back would sound a giant gong to signal the end of each verse.
Outside in the courtyard we sat and watched two nuns cut up yak meat with unnecessarily large cleavers. Two poofy cats circled about at their feet, and occasionally the nuns would flip a piece of meat to the cats with the knife.

In general the courtyard and quarters were remarkably well kept. A great variety of flowering plants circled the area in front of the temple and flower pots lined the hallways.
Later that evening we had another excellent – and outrageously cheap – dinner at the Shambahla. Try the momos.
Another round of photos in the gallery.










































