On Thursday 30 August I took off on the train from Guangzhou to Lhasa. The scenery as you will note from the photos did not disappoint! I was one of only a handful of foreigners on the train, so it was a very interesting and different experience. It took over 50 hours for us to reach our destination but I managed to sleep in my middle bunk quite successfully and the views kept me occupied most of the time. Lhasa itself was an awesome place, so full of colour and culture! I visited the famed Potala Palace (home to the Dalai Lama), monestaries, temples and spent some time noseying around the back streets and markets soaking everything in. Tibetan food is delicious, even the yak was pretty good!! I made lots of new friends at the hostel I stayed at too. In some ways Tibet is very similar to Bolivia (this was also the general concensus among fellow travellers). I think a large portion of the population are have nots, so this is why it felt the same as Bolivia. The country is very rich in culture but very poor in so many other ways. The people are extremely generous however. The Chinese population where I live has a penchant for staring, a cold, careless, curious stare but the Tibetans in contrast stare with great kindness and even get embarassed if you catch them looking. I was most impressed by this beautiful place and hope to get back again soon!!
2 comments:
I love these pics especially number two of the town, I can't get enough of it, it looks so exotic. The one underneath that one, no. 3, is that his holiness himself in the middle of htose other two monks? (Not me, I mean the OTHER his holiness, Mr Dalai Lama, and I was tempted to write Llama.)
It may just be me, but the picture of the field with the electrical line off to the side of the other photos looks heaps like the field at the end of the movie 'Seven', you know, the scene where Gwyneth's head was found in a box (yesssss!).
Mmm, I should have proofread that before I sent it floating onto the wind...
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