Bund – Old Customs House

There are pics today. This was the last day touring. We were very lucky. We had a cold day with rain yesterday while we were touring museums. Today we had beautiful weather — sunny with mildly warm temperatures. We started out seeing the Bund area. This is the area where colonial powers built their Shanghai offices in the early 1900s. It’s the area where there were signs posted saying things like “No Dogs or Chinese Allowed”. The Chinese have preserved and repurposed these buildings. And every one of them flies several prominent PRC (People’s Republic of China) flags. The picture you see here is of the old customs building. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a good picture of the row of all the Bund buildings flying their flags. It’s too bad, because it’s an impressive sight.

Bund – New Buildings

Yu Garden

In 1900, the sidewalk I took this picture from was a tow path where Chinese pulled boats upstream. There was farm land across the river. The area was artificially created (much like Miami, FL; but 100 years earlier). Today, the scene across the river has Shanghai’s tallest and most modern sky scrapers. Foundations run 65 meters deep to find bedrock. The tall building with a square hole in the center is a Japanese building. Originally, the hole was supposed to be round. The Chinese objected because it looked too much like the Japanese flag. (Feelings against the Japanese still run deep.) The Japanese resisted. The Chinese stopped building. The building sat incomplete until the Japanese changed their plans.

Yu Garden

Our next visit was to the famous Yu Gardens. These were built by Pan Yunduan starting in 1559. I’m including several pics. The Dragon Wall has an interesting story. Only the Emperor was permitted to have a dragon statue or image. Pan thought this would not be a problem because Shanghai is so far away from Beijing. But the Emperor went on a tour of southern China. When he visited the garden, he demanded to know how Pan dared use the dragon likeness. Pan was quite clever. Under the dragon’s head is a frog. If you blow the picture up, you can just barely see the frog in relief. Pan said he was the frog, and the dragon was the emperor. This wall was a symbol that he would forever be the subject of his emperor. After lunch we had a visit to the very un-inspiring Shanghai Planning Center. Tonight we will have our farewell dinner. Tomorrow we travel home.

Yu Garden

Yu Bonzi Trees

Yu Fish

Last of the Fish Food

Dragon Wall

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Fishing Boats (but they look ceremonial to me)

There are pics today. We had three activities today (besides meals). This morning, we went to the Shanghai Museum. This is considered to be one of China’s top museums. They have an extensive collection in bronze, sculpture, ceramics, ancient costumes, jade, furniture, and coins. We couldn’t begin to see everything in half a day. Apparently I don’t have very good tastes in art. We had an audio guide. The more important pieces had numbers. One could punch the number in the audio guide and hear a short message about the piece. Most of the things that caught my eye didn’t rate numbers.

Back From Fishing (my favorite)

After lunch, we went to a silk place. They had people weaving silk rugs, sculpting 3-D silk rugs, people making silk bed comforters, and all manner of silk merchandise for sale. If you were expecting something silk from us when we return, you’re going to be disappointed. We’ve spent about $100 on everything so far, including the meals that were on our own. This definitely does not include the price of anything made of high quality silk.

After dinner, we will see Chinese Acrobats. We have seen them twice in Baltimore. We’re looking forward to a great show tonight.

River Scene

Stone Lion with way cool eyes

Bodhisattva

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Bells of Marquis Su of Jin (950 BCE)

They say these bells were in tune when cast. That’s precision casting! The bells were played by striking them with a wooden mallet. The music sounds like Star Trek’s Betazoid dinner music. Each bell had two tones, depending on where it was struck. the round protrusions controlled the resonance. That’s some pretty sophisticated technology for 3,000 years ago. By 1800 AD, the Chinese had lost all of this technology. They could barely cast simple bronze statues of the zodiac animals for the Emperor’s summer palace.

Lock Park Garden

There are pics today. Our flight to Shanghai was canceled. Our tour company arranged for us to take a bullet train to another city, then fly from there to Shanghai. It means we won’t arrive in Shanghai until 9:30 PM. But we are quite happy because we didn’t have to miss anything on the tour.

Last Lock (Left side has low water level)

We woke up last night and realized we were in the first of 5 locks on the Yangtze River. We went out to our balcony to watch. There were 4 tour boats in the lock, 2 wide and 2 long. There was plenty of room lengthwise, but the width was quite crowded. There was only 10 feet or so to spare. The boats navigate in and out of the lock on their own power. The pilots are quite good, but they inevitably bump each other or bump the wall. They have rubber bumpers along both sides of the boat and travel slowly. Mostly we couldn’t even feel the bumps. We saw the lock finish emptying, the exit gate open, the boats move to the second lock, and the gate closing. That was enough, and we went back to bed.

Last Lock Door is Open, boats are moving to the river

By the time breakfast started, we were docked at the dam. There are lots of river tour boats, and they travel in lock step. They generally go through the locks at night. Commercial ships go through in the daytime. When docking, the first ship ties up to the dock. The next ship ties up to the first. We once walked through two other ships getting to our destination. A wall of ship’s crew prevented us from wondering around the wrong ship. Our local guide told us that 10,000 people visit the dam on an average day. That grows to 40,000 on holidays. (Some dam visitors arrive by bullet train or other transit.)

Dam and Future “Small Boat” Lift Termination

The scope of this project boggles the mind. I’ll let those who are interested look up statistics on the Internet. When they needed to remove a mountain of granite, they got a few tens of thousands of soldiers together and “disappeared” the mountain. They have two sets of locks. Either set can go in either direction. Generally, one set goes upstream and the other goes downstream. Depending on size, up to 6 ships can fit in a lock. There is no charge for ships to use the locks. (Hydro power pays all the bills). The project is already paid for itself after 19 years of operation. The locks are already working at capacity. Cargo ships are backed up trying to get through. The Chinese solution is to build a boat lift so the smaller boats can go up- or down-stream separately. A “Small Ship” is anything under 13 tons, which includes most of the tour boats.

This 4 Stage Escalator Replaces 200 Steps

The dam guide told us they are building a new canal. Beijing is in an arid area and needs more water. So they are building a canal to love water from the Yangtze. Its equivalent to building a canal from the Mississippi to DC. In the US or in China, one thing is the same. Now that more water is available, farmer all along the canal want more water. There are continuous fights about who gets how much water. Even the Chinese can’t always achieve harmony.

The rest of our day is on buses, trains, and planes. (Fortunately, we didn’t have to ride scooters around the streets of China!)

Red Pagoda

There are pics for today, if I can get them uploaded. If you don’t see 4 pics, just come back in 2 days. I will be able to post them from Shanghai. We cruised the Yangtze River, going through the first two gorges. Our off-boat tour today was a ride up a mini-gorge in a small boat. It’s an amazing area. The Chinese do themselves a disservice. They focus on some particular formation, attaching great importance to it. They build suspense, with everybody waiting to get around the bend to see the great formation. Then it turns out to be not much of anything given our view from the river, or some such thing. In the meantime, we lose focus on the grandeur and beauty of this area. For example, the second gorge is known for having “hanging coffins”. These are coffins, over 2000 years old, made of logs and placed in caves as high as possible above the river. A number of these were flooded when the dam was built. One can see some of the coffins in a museum. There is supposed to be one coffin still in its cave and visible from the small boat in the mini-gorge. Everybody was craning their neck in a futile attempt to find the coffin. In the meantime, we are sailing through some of the most amazing countryside I have ever seen.

Sampan Fish Market

There aren’t a lot of pics because they make a majestic area look banal. The Red Pagoda is from yesterday, at the relocated village we visited. I forgot it was on my cell phone. The sampan fish market was kind of cool. The sampans catch fish. Then they sail up to a tour boat and beat on the hull. Somebody from the tour boat comes out and buys fish for the buffet. The hanging coffin cave is explained above. The last picture shows dust that is still stirred up from a landslide that happened quite a while ago. I feel it deserves a name as grand as any of the other silly landmarks. I took a cue from the aura of mystery caused by the dust, and named it “Gateway to the Gods”.

Hanging Coffin Cave

Tomorrow we will be traveling until quite late. I might not be able to post tomorrow.

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Landslide Dust

There are pics today. Our first day’s cruise on the Yangtze River was quite relaxing. After two weeks of fairly high activity plus several days at high altitude, everybody was ready for a restful day. Our cruise ship is run by a US company. We were all delighted to find foods we are accustomed to. Chocolate is rare in China, and we haven’t found any peanut butter anywhere in the country. Our tour package includes the executive package — nicer rooms, nicer dining, wine with dinner, etc. It feels wonderful, especially after the rather primitive conditions we experienced in Tibet. There was an extra-cost tour in the morning. A few from our tour went on it and found it to be an interesting trip. But most of us made the most of a day of R & R.

Channel Marker, Sampan

We spent hours sitting on our balcony observing the world go by. They use unmanned boats as channel markers. Things have changed since “A Story of Ping”. A few sampans still sail these waters, but they use motors for propulsion and no longer have wise eyes. We didn’t see any ducks or boys tied to barrels. We attended a talk about the Yangtze River. From a commercial viewpoint, the Yangtze is the busiest river in the world. It is a little longer than the Mississippi, but carries twice the commercial traffic. “Ping” gives a peaceful picture of sailing down the river, but sailing the Yangtze was anything but peaceful in reality. Parts of the river, especially the 3 big gorges, had fast currents. Sailing downstream dangerous. One section was called “The gateway to hell”. There were a tow paths to pull boats upstream. They used human “tow trackers” to pull boats upstream. Boats required anywhere from 5 to 100 men. This was an extremely arduous and dangerous job with a high mortality rate. The men generally worked naked. (With some very clever photoshopping — women were not permitted to sit in the front of the boat.) The speaker said they used humans instead of animals because animals were more valuable, and humans more intelligent. Some of us in the audience questioned the second point. All of this changed with the building of the Three Gorges Dam.

Grandpa

We docked at 4:30 for tours. Most passengers visited the Red Pagoda. The Chinese wanted to preserve the Pagoda, but it was cost too much to move it. The hill the Pagoda sits on is above the high water mark, but the surrounding land is not. The solution was to build a levee around the pagoda hill, turning it into an island during the winter high water season. A pedestrian bridge give access.

Guide and “Mom”

Our group visited the village that lives along the river. This village was relocated to higher ground. The government gave the residents enough money to build new houses. The residents built the houses themselves or hired contractors to do it. Most houses are 4 stories high. There is a garage for storage at street level, then 3 levels for housing; one family per floor. The houses are large and modern. They have electricity, indoor plumbing, natural gas, air conditioning, etc. But these were farmers, and the land for farming is under water. They still farm small plots. The only industry is tourism. Villagers do crafts, work at the “Hello” market, work on the tour boats, or are retired. Their children leave the village to find jobs. The family we visited is typical. “Grandpa” is 90 and spends his days making sandals from corn leaves in the garage. “Mom and Dad” own the unit on the second floor. They are retired and draw 500 yuan/month from the government. Their two daughters have left town to find jobs. They take care of their younger 8-year old grandson. The daughter visits every 2 or 3 weeks to see her son. The rent one of their bedrooms for a nominal cost plus cooking services. When they get older, they will move in with their daughter and try to sell their house.

There are pics this week. I was very surprised to learn that internet access is included in our cruise package. As is happy hour with wine and cookies. I think I might enjoy the wine and cookies more.  ;-) They warned that there will be times when the internet doesn’t work because the boat is not able to see the satellite.

Red Panda

We started our day with a flight to Chongqing. got its 15 minutes of modern fame when Chang Kai Check moved his government here during the Chinese-Japanese war (which we call WW II). It is best known in the US by the Flying Tigers, which was a US team sent to help China establish a realistic air force. I learned that the name “Flying Tigers” was established through a misunderstanding. When Claire Lee Chennault founded the Flying Tigers, he brought P-40 aircraft, which had shark mouths painted on the nose. The Chinese in Chongqing didn’t know what a shark was, but they thought the nose art made a fine looking tiger.

Panda

We first toured the zoo, where we saw Panda Bears, Red Panda Bears, Asian Tigers, and White Bengal tigers. That’s quite a bit for a 1-hour zoo visit. After that, we went to China’s Chinatown. This rather confusing concept was caused by a war between the Chinese and *somebody* 300 years ago. The Chinese lost the war. The *somebodies* became the rulers. And the *somebodies* decided the Chinese should build a nice area for them in Chongqing. The Chinese used one of the buildings they built to stage their operas, socialize, help the poor Chinese with rice and money, etc. I don’t know that the place has an official name, but was told we could call it Hu Gong.

White Bengal, Asian Tigers

Our dinner was quite good. It’s the first time we had what we in the US would consider typical Chinese food. Then it was time to board the boat. We have the opportunity of taking a lot of optional tours (that cost extra money). But Danita and I plan to stick with the three tours included in our program.

China Chinatown

Here are some observations about Tibet. Chinese police presence is very strong in Tibet. One occasionally sees heavily armed police, but they are not threatening. The Chinese way is to try to talk an errant person into correcting his misbehavior. If he does, no formal charges are filed. If he doesn’t the police will eventually step in. It’s all part of the game of keeping a large country in line where it’s important to avoid losing face if possible. But there are also a lot more regular police (which are often unarmed). Our guide twice told us that we need to be more careful because undercover police speak English and can hear what we say.

Chinese are building infrastructure, opening factories, and generally moving Tibet very quickly into a modern society. To make this happen, Chinese are moving into Tibet in large numbers. A large number of Tibetans look at the modern and Americanized culture China has to offer, and are thinking that this isn’t progress. They prefer the old ways. They don’t want the modern residential high rises, the emphasis on education, the traffic, the cash economy, etc. When asked, one of our lecturers said that alcoholism has become a large issue in Tibet, as a large number of people are left behind. The Tibetans I was able to talk with hope that these issues can be resolved peacefully.

Last night’s dinner was on our own. We found a grocery store and bought some food, including more Western treats than we need. The chocolate chip cookies came in handy for a snack, because lunch wasn’t until 3:00. We’re reserving the rest of the cookies for the airplane lunch tomorrow. Their meals have been uniformly awful so far.

Morning Dancing

We started out the day going to a park in Lhasa. They have Tibetan dancing from 8:30 to 10. It’s a free recreational program. They do a dance from Northern Tibet. It is wildly popular. There must have been over 500 people dancing. The people in the center are the lead dancers. Besides the people you see here, dancers spilled out all over the area, far beyond where they could see the lead dancers. In the middle of a dance, the activity organizer came out and good-naturedly chided folks for not dancing correctly. It’s for sure everybody was having a good time.

Jade Jug

After this we went to a local cultural and history museum. It wasn’t a huge museum, but they did a very nice job. They started with 30,000 BCE. The pieces we liked best were actually made in China. This jade jug has 3 handles firmly affixed to the body. Each handle has a perfect ring, not attached to the handles. I can’t imagine carving something like this.

Jade Jug

The next jug was an even more impressive bit of carving, with the lid held to the pot with a jade chain.

Ceramic Jug

It must have been a day to admire jugs. The last piece I’ll share is a ceramic jug. I can’t say exactly why I like it. I just thought it had a great sense of beauty.

Potala Palace Side View

Next was the highlight of Tibet — the Potalo Palace, otherwise known as the winter palace. It was wise to visit this palace on the 3rd day, because visiting requires climbing or descending 600 steps. Danita was getting herself all psyched up about whether she would be able to do this. But she decided to try. She did it and found that while it was difficult, it was far from impossible. Altogether, 15 of the 24 people on this tour visited the palace. Everybody who started up made it all the way. This included a lady who broke both ankles just last October.

Potala Palace

As usual, we couldn’t take any pictures inside. Today no functions are carried out in this palace. Before China took over Tibet, white sections were for government operations (including the jail), red sections were for religious, and yellow sections were for the Deli Lama.

Entrance to the Palace, 200 Steps Up

At The Top Of The Steps

Potala Palace Garden

I’ll include a few more shots. To a non-believer, it looks a lot like other Tibetan Buddha palaces, monasteries, and temples. Highlights included tombs for many of the Deli Lamas. I also learned that the 4th Deli Lama was more interested in drinking wine and writing poetry than in Buddhism. I suppose drinking wine can enlighten one to write poetry.

We had some free time after lunch. After dinner, we a dancing demonstration. Tibetan dancing is quite vigorous, and the dancers didn’t pose for pictures. But I did get a few shots, which are below.

Dancer

Dancer

Dancer

Dancer

Dancer

The next 3 days we are sleeping on the river boat. Internet is not free. My China phone plan does not include data. Unless the Internet on the boat is a lot cheaper than I suspect, my next post will be on Sunday, May 10 (China time).

Village In Mountains

There are pics today.

The breakfast today was not as good as yesterday’s bad breakfast. We didn’t get any butter for our bread — only jam. But at least we had warm water for the shower. (Not hot, but warm enough to use).

Yak

Our major activity was to drive out to a village to see how rural Tibetans live. We passed several other rural vilages (including the picturesque one show above) to a village an hour and a half from our hotel. Our family’s house had yaks, of course. Q: If a yak gets loose and blocks traffic, is that a “big yak attack”?

Cow

They also had cows, complete with Buddah decorations. (The cow in the back hads red ribbons on his ears.) When Tibetans eat “yak butter”, it’s almost always mostly cow butter with a little yak butter mixed in.

House

The village was quite hilly. Houses were packed close together and surrounded by walls. I couldn’t get a good picture of what a house looks like. Here’s a pic of the mini-courtyard outside the prayer room. Houses were surprisingly big. They were built of block and were very sturdy. The yards were full of junk, but the houses were clean and the windows well-fitted. If you look closely, you will see painted decoration that’s very typical of what I’ve seen all over Tibet. The drapes you see are cartoon Disney bed sheets.

House Courtyard

Here you can see a small area of the courtyard. This is an arid area, so there’s not a lot they can do about the dust. They tend to throw a lot of what looks to me like junk in the yard. I don’t know whether it’s hard to dispose of larger trash or weather the family doesn’t think of it as junk.

Cheese Mo Mo

We were offered Cheese Mo Mo (sp?) as a snack. It was quite tasty.

Tea Maker

They offered butter tea (butter, salt, water, and a little black tea) and sweet tea (millet, sugar, hot water, and a little black tea) to drink. They traditionally drink butter tea in the morning and sweet tea after 11:00. As I mentioned above, there’s only a small amount of yak butter and a larger quantity of cow butter. This pic shows their courtyard tea maker. I felt the pot and it was quite hot. I saw a lot of these in Tibet. Given all the sun they get, it makes a lot of sense.

Thanka

Buddha Banners

Compassionate Buddha

Budha Case

We were invited into their prayer room. This is always the largest room in the house. On special occasions, a Buddah monk is invited to stay with them. The monk will sleep on the floor in this room. The room is sometimes used for special guests (such as us, aparently.) Other than that, the room is not used. It’s just like the parlor in the old Baltimore row houses of two generations ago (except the priest never slept over). The room is decorated as a temple. It is the cleanest room in the house. These pictures show some of the things in the room. I won’t pretend to be able to explain them well.

On The Roof Prayer Flags And Mountains

If you go back to the courtyard shot, you will see a ladder leading to the roof. I went up this ladder and looked around. Here you can see the prayer flags and a mountain in the background. According to the lecture we got this afternoon, prayer flags should always have five colors. From top to bottom, they are blue (sky), white (clouds), yellow (earth), red (fire), and green (rivers and lakes). Those are the colors I always saw, but I saw that they aren’t always in the preferred order.

A Sign Of Wealth

These people have no problems combining the religious with the secular. I saw pilgrims rotating their hand-held prayer wheels with one hand while talking on the cell phone with the other. We didn’t see any part of the inside of the house other than the prayer room. However, this family seems to be doing pretty well.

Construction

Just outside the house there was some kind of construction project going on. The women and old men were doing the work. The young men were out liviging with the livestock. This is a semi-nomadic society,. The villagers obviously believe in equality for the sexes. You can’t be sure from the picture I got, but the person mixing cement is a woman.

School

After visiting the house (we never got to talk with any of the adults in the village), we visited the school. This is a village primary school. The next level of children go to a centralized school. The children were outside eating lunch. The teacher is from this village and had just graduated from high school. He did not pass his university entrance exams and took this job while waiting to try the exams a second time. There are 10 children in the school.

We had a picnic lunch on the way home. Whe we got back to our hotel, we got a lecture about Tibet cultural history. The hotel did not have a projector, and the lecture was pretty dry. But the discussion afterwards was riviting. I learned a lot about Tibet.

JT: Burning Incense Outside The Entry Gate

There are pics today. Our hotel served what would have been a so-so dinner last night, except that they served a world-class pizza. We had a rough start today. The heat in the hotel doesn’t work. We asked and were given an electric space heater. This device can raise the temperature of the room from 16 to 17 in an hour and a half. (That’s 61 to 63 in Fahrenheit.) But we can stand in front of it to warm up. Plus, it’s the brightest light in the room, so we can see stuff when we want to.

JT: Pilgrims

We had to turn it off overnight, but the room comes with double heavy duty quilts. I woke at 5 the next morning as usual, but Danita slept in until it was time to get ready for breakfast. When she got up, she was feeling pretty bad, with a headache and various miscellaneous maladies. I went to take a shower, only to find there was no hot water. We went down to breakfast to find the best food available was a plate of bread that was placed on one of the tables, with some butter and jam. The only hot drink was coffee with a lot of sugar and a lot of cream.

JT: Pot To Make Tea With Yak Butter

Things got a lot better once we got on the bus. Our first visit was to Jokhang Temple, the largest and most important Buddhist temple in Tibet. Pics of the Jokhang Temple have captions that start with “JT: “. The interest started before we even got inside, with two of the biggest incense burners I have ever seen. Once a year, all the Monks get together for a week. They need lots of tea with yak butter. So they have a huge cauldron for makinging in. The rest of the year, it’s just decorative.

JT: Courtyard Deli Lama Window

There were pilgrims all over the place. They were prostrating themselves, spinning prayer wheels, reciting prayers or songs while counting with a rosary, or offering money at the various statues and other points of religious significance. Did you know there are about 3,000 Buddhas? Primary Buddhas are First Buddha, Present Buddha, Future Buddha, Compassionate Buddha … there’s a very long list.

JT: Courtyard Deli Lama Throne

As before, pictures are not allowed inside the temple. But we were able to take pictures in the courtyard. They maintain special places for the Deli Lama to participate in their important ceremonies, even though the current Deli Lama is exiled, and there will probably never be another one.

JT: Upstairs Garden

There’s also an upstairs garden where we could take pictures. It’s difficult to get details of a lot of things because of the extremely bright sunlight. Interesting things are often in the shade, but surrounded by very bright sunlight. My cell phone camera can’t handle that kind of lighting.

JT: Monk

Finally, here’s a picture of a Monk in the garden. I don’t know what these guys do all day long, but the few I saw were busy running from one place to another every time I saw them.

Tibetan Medicine

Our next stop was a very good lunch, followed by a lecture about Tibetan medicine. I was surprised that Tibetan medicine is much different than Chinese medicine. We learned quite a bit about it. Our lecture was in the traditional medicine hospital, which was filthy. I hope their resident rooms and operating areas are a lot cleaner. We were there during lunch break, so the only person we saw there were a couple of maintenance people and the man who gave the lecture.

Healing Buddha

They were describing how patents chose the doctor they wanted to see. Their description made me ask if patients can make appointments. They can’t. They just show up. If they can’t see the doctor that day, they can come back another day. One of the other people in our party asked about the availability of Western medical equipment. That’s when we learned that the hospital will sometimes do surgery, which uses mostly Western practices. And that they sometimes use Western diagnostic equipment to “correct” the diagnosis of the traditional doctor. Here’s a picture of the healing Buddha. It’s the first Buddha I saw where I was permitted to take a picture.

SM: Outside

Our last touring stop was Sera Monastery. These pictures are prefixed with “SM: “. This is the largest and most important Buddha monastery in Tibet. Just before the cultural revolution, it had 4,000 monks. Today, it has 500 monks. My first picture is outside the monastery. It’s the first picture I have that shows how brown the surrounding mountains are.

SM: Prayer Wheels

No Buddha facility is complete without prayer wheels. I was able to take a picture of these. Remember: always rotate your Buddha prayer wheel clockwise, never counter-clockwise!

SM: Buddha Circle Of Life

This is a picture of the Buddha circle of life. It is held by the god of death. After life, everybody who is not yet enlightened has to go to hell, where there is no light, and walk in the darkness until they are reincarnated. Burning yak butter will give these poor souls a little light. That’s why another thing one can find in any Buddha facility is several large tubs of burning yak butter.

SM: Monk Debates

The most interesting part of our visit (that I could photograph) is the monk debates. Monks educate themselves by reading scripture in the morning. Their lessons are reinforced with debates. The sitting monk is asking questions. The standing monk is answering them. After every answer, monks slap their wrist. The nerve in the wrist is connected to the brain. The slap improves the memory.

Picture With Foreigners

My final picture is of foreigner picture taking. Both Chinese and Tibetans like to ask Americans to pose with them in a picture. The protocol is that once the picture is taken, they thank us and walk away. But this time, I broke protocol and asked them to take the picture with my camera, so I can have a picture of us posing with them.

Well, if you got this far, I guess this post wasn’t too long. It’s about time to get ready for dinner.

Welcome Musicians

There are pics today. We left the hotel at 5 AM to catch an early flight to Lhasa. We arrived at our hotel around 1 and had lunch. Then we left for the summer palace. Flying in, we noted how brown the area looks. It’s quite cold in the winter, and doesn’t get much rain or snow. Lhasa has lots of parks and green areas, which obviously require lots of watering. I expected to see a lot less cars and more bicycles. There were fewer cars and more scooters; but not all that many bikes. Young people have been migrating into Lhasa because they find it easy to start a business. They want more modern homes with Western plumbing and conveniences. Several high rises are being built in the area.

Welcome Scarf

We had a bizarre drive from the airport to town. Several tour busses were in accidents which caused some deaths. The locals passed a law that no tour bus can have more than 20 people when entering or leaving Lhasa. The “20” includes the driver, the guide, and a policeman to ride with us to make sure we obey the law. We had a second van. Seven of us had to ride in the van.

Our hotel has recently been modernized, but it’s obviously in a poorer area. We have to tell the staff when we will take a shower, so hot water will be available. We were given a welcoming ceremony when we arrived. Two musicians played music while a couple of yaks (men in costume) danced around. An attractive young lady gave us white ribbons (for good luck) and a sincere welcome.

Welcomed

There are two palaces the Deli Lama used in Lhasa — a winter palace and a summer palace. We visited the summer palace today because it’s pretty much at ground level. I’m no athlete, but I am in decent shape. Danita and I have been taking the altitude pills. Nevertheless, I felt the affects of being at a high altitude. We kept our pace slower, always used elevators, occasionally felt dizzy, occasionally felt tingly fingers, etc.

Entrance To Summer Palace

The summer palace has several buildings. We were allowed to enter several of them, but we could not take pictures indoors. We spent most of our time in the building built by the 14th Deli Lama (the current Deli Lama). He had to leave Tibet a few years after the building was completed. The highlight seemed to be a radio donated by the Indian government. It was about the size of two stoves side-by-side. I don’t know how he tuned it because there were no dials on the outside.

14th Deli Lama Building

We didn’t go inside the main building,built by the 7th Deli Lama. But we did go inside the library built by the 1th Deli Lama. The building has 1300 religious documents. The white banner you see on the outside of the building has a blue design of several diamonds inside a large white diamond. This is a religious good luck symbol. You can’t tell from the picture, but the line making the diamonds is an infinite loop, crossing over and under itself in an Escheresque manner. It symbolizes that life is infinite.

13th Deli Lama Library

Other than dinner, that’s it for today. Most of us are pretty tired after that mild exercise.