Potala Palace

Potala Palace is a symbol of the cultural and economic communication of Tibet and Tang Court. Now, with high historical value, the palace is very important to China. The Palace is composed of 2 parts, the Red Palace as the center and the White Palace as two wings.

Red Palace

The Red Palace or Potrang Marpo is the highest part in the center that is completely devoted to religious study and Buddhist prayer. It was painted red to represent stateliness and power.

White Palace

The White Palace or Potrang Karpo once served as the office building of Tibet local government and the living quarters of Dalai Lama. Its wall was painted to white to convey peace and quiet.

Sho : ཤོ

A traditional race game in Tibet. Its name is simply the Tibetan word for "dice". It is traditionally played for money and by men, with two to four players - three being the most common. With four players, the usual variant is to play as two teams of two, with the partners sitting opposite each other.

The "board" is formed by a circular line of shells, typically sixty-four in number. Each player (or team) has nine identical playing pieces, which are usually old coins. Two six-sided dice are used. They are placed in a wooden dice cup which is shaken and then slammed down onto a dice pad, typically made of yak leather stuffed with yak wool, which forms the centre of the board, within the circle of shells.

Tibetan Girl Prostrating

I noticed the girl so I had my nephew pretend I was taking his photos. But I followed her as she made her way. Body-length by body-length she prostrated herself. The things in her hands were used to slide to a prostrating position. She stopped to where her parents were.

There is also a legend that the site on which Jokhang Temple is located was a lake in earlier times. Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo made a promise to Princess Khidzun by the lake that a monastery should be built where the ring has fallen. It so happened that the ring dropped into the lake immediately, and the surface of the lake became full of a net of lights and a 9-level white tower appeared among the light net.

After this, immense construction works began on the basis of thousands of goats who carried clay for the construction of the monastery. It took 3 years to built Jokhang Monastery, and it was originally named Ruosa in memory of the achievements of goats. In Chinese, “Ruo” means "goat" and “Sa" means "clay," in the Tibetan language. The monastery was renamed "Zhulakang" (the sutra hall) and also called "Juekang" (the Buddha hall) meaning the building was created by the goats who carried all its clay.

Drepung Monastery

འབྲས་སྤུངས་དགོན་པ

The largest Tibetan monastery, Drepung Monastery lies at the foot of the Gambo Utse Mountain, around five kilometers from downtown Lhasa, and is one of the Great Three Gelug Monasteries in Tibet, along with Sera and Ganden monasteries which are all located in Lhasa. Covering an area of 250,000 square meters (299,007 square yards), it held 7,700 monks in total and possessed 141 fazendas and 540 pastures in its heyday, and is the largest-scale monastery among the ones of the same kind. Seen from afar, its grand, white construction gives the appearance of a heap of rice. As such, it was given the name 'Drepung', which, in the Tibetan language, means 'Rice Heap Monastery'.

Known as the Ganden Palace, the Ganden Phodrang was the private residence of the Dalai Lamas, from the second to the fifth when it was moved to the Potala Palace.

Ganden Monastery is located on Wangbur Mountain, on the southern bank of Lhasa River in Tagtse County, 47 kilometers (29 miles) from Lhasa City. It stands at an altitude of 3,800 meters (12,467 feet) above sea level! It is one of the earliest and largest Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, and stands atop of the six famous temples of Gelugpa - a branch of Tibetan Buddhism. Its significance as a religious, artistic, political and cultural relic led to it being preserved by the National Key Cultural Relic Preservation scheme in 1961.

The Suge La is not the highest motorable pass in the world, but it is definitely one of the highest. The Suge La rises to 5430m / 17,815 feet above sea level. Most people feel altitude sickness at around 2,500-2,800 meters. Near the pass, oxygen is in short supply. The pass is located in the Nyenchen Dangla Mountains about 110kms northwest of Lhasa. From the pass, you get an amazing view of Chomo Gangtse, which rises to 7048m. The road conditions at the Suge La are decent. It is a wide dirt road that most vehicles can travel on.

Near Death Experience

It has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous because of unpredictable snowstorms and blizzards, and driving under these conditions, can be extremely challenging and very dangerous.

Our road trip was cut short because once we got to our destination, I found out that our return flight was the following day, not two days later. So we had to return to Lhasa that evening. We found a person willing to take us back. He had a truck but not four wheel-drive. Anyway, as we were approaching the Suge Le pass it began to snow which later turned to sleet. There were no railings whatsoever on the side of the pass. The condition for us to drive off the road and down the side of the mountain was perfect. The truck was not equipped for off-road much less icy condition. The driver didn't know how to drive on sleek roads. It was very dark.

We were able to make it over the top in spite of sliding to the side a few times. But during one sharp turn, the truck began to slide towards the cliff. My nephew and I instinctively jumped out of the truck. Words cannot describe the expression of horror on the driver's face as he reach out his hand to help him out. By the grace of God, the wheel stopped inches from going over. So after all our nerves calmed down, we managed to drive the truck to side of the mountain and park it until daybreak to continue. We managed to hitch a ride with a group of Tibetans down the mountain. Needless to say, we missed our flight and had to buy 1st class seats on the next flight out.