Tibet
Photos Page 1
Day 25 Fly from Kathmandu to Lhasa, Tibet December 1, 2018
Our Nepal & the Mystical Himalayas adventure ended today but we began our discoveries in Tibet. We departed Kathmandu on a flight to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. A bus took us to the hotel to relax and adjust to the altitude of 12,000 feet.
► Leaving Kathmandu ► Flight Kathmandu to Lhasa ► Arriving Lhasa Tibet
Day 26 Lhasa • Potala Palace • Jhokhang Temple • Norbulingkha December 2, 2018
Today we visit one of the grandest monuments in all of Asia: the extraordinary Potala Palace. Built in the 17th century with more than 1,000 rooms, including the Red palace (where the Dalai Lama once lived), 10,000 chapels, and a labyrinth of mysterious dungeons. It took 7,000 workers, 1,500 artists and craftsmen more than 50 years to build the adjoining White and Red palaces. This Eastern architectural triumph was the world’s tallest building before the creation of 20th-century skyscrapers. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 the Dalai Lama was forced to live as a refugee in India. Perched on Red Mountain, the Palace offers sweeping views of the city and the surrounding immense peaks that are as extraordinary as its interior.
► Potala Palace I ► Potala Palace II ► Potala Palace Lhasa Street
Norbulingka, an 89-acre park built in 1755 means "Jeweled Park." It was the summer residence of the Dalai Lamas from the 1780 until the14th Dalai Lama's exile in 1959. Part of Potala Palace, Norbulingka is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.This beautiful example of “Yellow Hat” architecture was built by the seventh Dalai Lama and served as the summer home of successive Dalai Lamas until the late 1950s. During the invasion of Tibet in 1950, a number of buildings were damaged, but in 2003 the Chinese government initiated renovations to restore some of the damaged structures as historical NOT religious purposes. ► Norbulingkha Dalai Lama
Day 27 Lhasa • Drephung & Sera monasteries • Norbulingka Dec 3, 2018
Today started at Bharkor Street, in old Lhasa, with marketplace activity and religious devotion. We enter the 1,300-year-old Jokhang Temple, where Buddhist pilgrims make clockwise circuits on their hands and knees in reverence to one of Tibet’s most sacred sites. Thousands of yak-butter candles flicker beneath the enlightened gaze of golden Jowo Sakyamuni, the seventh-century Buddha statue that the temple was built to house. ► Bharkor Street ► Jokhang Temple
Next was a visit the Sera “wild rose garden” monastery. The Sera monastery, earned its name for opulent wild roses that grew all around the site centuries ago. Before 1959, the monastery was home to more than 7,000 monks, but since then the monastery has only increased in cultural significance and emotional power. Built in 1419—the year that the sect’s founder, Je Tsongkhapa, died. The monastery was built to house precious gifts from the Emperor to one of Je Tsongkhapa’s disciples. ► Sera Monastery
