We caught a 1pm flight from Chengdu to Lhasa, and arrived at Lhasa Gongkar airport just before 3:30pm. Our Tibetan tour guide was there to greet us, holding a large sign in his hands with our name on it. He gave us each a ceremonial scarf to welcome us. Our guides name is Baima, he is Tibetan, and has never been out of Tibet. He speaks very good English, and is easy to understand. We meet our driver, Gosang, outside the airport. He doesn’t speak any English, but is very friendly and makes us feel welcome. Here is a picture of Gosang and Baima (click for a larger image):
We drive for nearly 2 hours to reach Lhasa, and the first things you notice are the clear blue sky with not a trace of smog to be seen anywhere. The mountains are desolate, but beautiful at the same time. Baima teaches us many things about Tibet during the drive. We stayed at the Thangka Hotel, right in the heart of Lhasa, just a 100 metre walk to Jokhang temple. It was quite a nice little 3 or 4 star hotel, in a fantastic location.
Getting into Tibet can be difficult, you need to have a permit, and the only way you can get a permit officially is to be part of a tour. A tour can be private though, as long as you have a full time tour guide and driver, a planned itinerary, and a hotel booked, they will issue you a permit. There are plenty of places around that will give you an unofficial permit so that you can travel in Tibet independently, but it can be a bit risky. Most of the time, the Chinese government turn a blind eye to this practice, but in times of political sensitivity, the clamp down hard. We were going to do it the unofficial way, but two weeks before departure, we decided not to risk it and organised a private tour through Travel Indochina in Australia. This turned out to be a wise choice, as the week that we got there, the Chinese Government decided to hold a major conference in Beijing. To top it all off, the current Dalai Lama was granted an award by the US Government, much to the ire of the Chinese. They clamped down hard on the unofficial permits, and a lot of people got left stranded in China, trying to get into Tibet and not being able to. We got our permit the night before our flight into Lhasa, and so we were OK. Our tour cost us $AUD1100 each, for 4 days, and included accomodation with breakfast, a full time tourguide and driver all to ourselves, and entry into all of the places we visited.
Lhasa is at 3700 metres altitude, and so altitude sickness is a concern. A small percentage of people are affected by it, so we went to the doctors before we left and got some Diamox, which is used to prevent altitude sickness. We started taking it the day before we arrived in Lhasa, but we stopped taking it when we arrived because we both felt OK, no headaches or anything. The only ill effect we felt was that on the first day, we found we were losing our breath very easily, and had to stop and have a rest every now and then. After the first day though, everything was OK. The high altitude can affect a lot of other things though. For example, water boils at just 88C at this altitude, so coffee and tea don’t taste the same. Even 2 minute noodles taste different. Rice is very hard to cook, the locals need to use a pressure cooker to do so. Hard drives in laptops are typically only rated to 3000 metres as they need air pressure to keep the heads off the spinning disk platters, although I used my little Sony Vaio laptop without ill effect.
Anyway, on the first day, I was feeling a lot better, but still very weak. We walked up to the Jokhang Temple, the most important temple to all Tibetans, and Baima took us for a tour. It’s amazing, but the smell of Yak Butter burning gets a bit much after a while. After a few hours walking around, listening to Baima explain what all of the statues mean etc (it’s fascinating) Baima said that we would go to the Potala Palace in the afternoon. I asked if we could see the Potala another day, as I was still feeling weak from being sick, and a bit short of breath, and I wan’t looking forward to climbing all those steps, but he had already booked us in. He said we could climb slowly, which was good, because I was really tired
Climbing the steps up to the top of the Potala Palace was hard work! We could only walk up 10-20 steps at a time, before we had to stop and catch our breath. Thankfully, although we were quick to lose our breath, we were equally quick to get it back again, and besides, it gave us a chance to stop and admire the views, which were spectacular
There were lots of Monks inside the palace, chanting and reading their scriptures. They all but ignored me completely, but as soon as the saw Angie, they would stop what they were doing and bow to her with hands held in a praying pose. Baima reckons that they thought she was from Burma, and looked familar to them. The Potala palace is just an amazing maze of rooms, full of history, full of spiritual meaning. I loved it, for me, it was what I was looking forward to the most on the whole trip. We took some amazing photos (see the link at the end of this page) and got some lifelong memories
The next day, we went up to the Drepung Monastery, one of the largest in Tibet. The views from the courtyard in the Monastery were just fantastic, and it was so peaceful and beautiful, that we ended up just sitting there relaxing in the peace a quiet for nearly an hour. The monastery itself was very beautiful, very colorful, and of course smelled of the obligatory Yak Butter burning. One poster over at the Lonely Planet Forums said that every time she ate Yak Butter, that she imagined that she was licking a monastery wall 
We went for lunch at the Snowland Restaurant, just around the corner from the Hotel, they have a wide range of both western and Tibetan foods, as well as a few things from other places. Angie had the chicken tikka, but I had to try the Yak Pepper Steak, and I was not disappointed! It was just one of the best meals that I’ve had in a long time, just delicious. After lunch, we talk a walk around the Barkhor, which is the circuit that the pilgrims follow around the Jokhang Temple. It’s loaded with market stalls selling all sorts of souvenirs and nik-naks. It’s about a 1km circuit. We also visited the Muslim Quarter at the end of the barkhor
After that, we went to the Sera Monastery to have a look around and at 3pm, we watched the famous debating of the monks. This is a sight to be seen, it’s very dynamic, very passionate, and very loud. Well worth a visit, just sit back and watch.
Our last day in Lhasa was a fairly quiet one, we visited Chagpo Ri, and then went to the Lhasa Museum, which was very interesting. We had the whole afternoon to ourselves, so we walked around the Barkhor again, and talk a walk around Lhasa. It’s a really nice place, but the more you see, the more you wonder what it would been like before the Chinese arrived.
See our photos of Lhasa
