{"id":233,"date":"2009-08-06T17:50:29","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T21:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web1prod.sunflowerit.ca\/wordpress\/?p=233"},"modified":"2025-07-03T15:11:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:11:24","slug":"lhasa-tibet-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/china-2009\/trips-asia\/other-trips\/lhasa-tibet-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lhasa (Tibet): Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I guess the second part of our stay in Lhasa can be summarized by: Temple, Monastery and Palace. In order to visit the famous Potala Palace, prospective visitors must reserve tickets one day ahead, unfortunately the day we returned from our NamTso lake excursion around 5:00pm the 1,000 daily reservation had already been issued. So in the morning, we met our guide and went to visit the Jokhang Temple close by our hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since our arrival in Lhasa, we’ve felt immersed into a different culture within China. Although we’ve seen many Buddhist temples throughout out trip, we have a hard time relating to the devout pilgrims that queue several hours each morning at the Jokhang Temple in order to pray in the various chapels contained in the temple. We’ve seen an ongoing flow of pilgrims turning their hand-held prayer wheel or stationary prayer wheel. From our western Christian perspective, it is a bit hard to comprehend the extent of the Buddhist faith. As we understand, although the Buddhism was imported from India, it appears that Tibet has blended to it some of its own particularities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we entered the Jokhang Temple with our guide, we felt that we benefited from a Disney FastPass in that we were able to by-pass all the pilgrims and quickly gained access to the various chapels. Photography within the temples, monasteries and palace are typically prohibited or available for certain chapels at a premium cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After visiting the Temple, we took the taxi to secure our reservation for tickets for the Potala Palace for the next day. After waiting more than one hour in line, we got a confirmed visiting time of 2:20pm for the following day. During the wait, Jenny had a long chat with some Chinese teachers that had just driven from Chengdu to Lhasa with another group of teachers. It appeared, according to these teachers, that Lhasa has lost much of its Tibetan flavor compared to other parts of Tibet they had seen over the past few weeks of driving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, we explored a pleasant park at the base of the back of the Potala Palace. The park contained many exercise equipment which the locals enjoy very much.. After lunch, we returned to our hotel for a rest. Victoria and Jenny have now picked up a cold – most likely as result from our NamTso lake excursion.<\/p>\n\n\n