Day 5. April, 14. Katmandu - Lhasa
Despite the fact that the flight from Katmandu to Lhasa isn't long and takes a little more than an hour, in fact with the collection of the equipment and the time difference (the time in Lhasa is plus 2 hours 15 minutes to the time in Katmandu) we had a whole day. Everything started from the packing of trunks for BC and ABC, which will be deliver to Tibet by truck together with the first-aid kits. The doctor of the expedition Sergey Larin used 50-litre barrels as first-aid boxes; afterwards it had been a usual before-the-departure and after-the-departure fuss, so we checked in right before the dinner.
Day 6. April, 15. Lhasa
From the window of our hotel We have a beautiful view on the roofs of neighbouring buildings and on the mountain ridge, the plain surrounding Lhasa. I haven't been here for 11 years. For that time the city has been completely transformed: all slums, in which local people had been living, were pulled down, and now their place is taken by absolutely new buildings, stylized as traditional buildings, which roof are seen from our window. Looks picturesque...
Simultaneously with that, Chinese did a great job on transformation of the local population, its traditions and customs towards 'civilization'. All unpaved streets were paved with granite, it's extremely clean in the streets now - last time when I were here I had to watch my steps to not step in someone's poo. The amount of local inhabitants, rotating a prayer drums and walking or crawling clockwise around the temple, significantly decreased, and the amount of tourists increased correspondingly. Cutting the long story short - in front of the eyes the extremely dirty, but very lively and authentic city is turning into the grandiose tourist facility.
We could not skip the traditional excursion to the Palace of Dalai Lama - Potala. In 2004 the inside walls of the Palace were so dirty, that after touching them you had to go and wash your hands with soap. An incredible dirt appeared because of the illumination of the Palace with lampads filled with yak's fat - while they are burning they give an oily soot. The floor was covered with dirty fat as well, its thickness was about 5-7 cm. All this dirt was somehow removed, the amount of lampads was redused to minimum.
The money-changers operate very actively, changing the pack of 1 Jiao currency notes to one 100 Yuan currency note, they have a fantastic profitability - 99 Yuan from each bargain... The currency notes of 1 Jiao are neccessary not only for putting them to the rods and making wishes, but also for putting them to the altars of the countless amount of the statues of Buddha and to the stupas containing the ashes of the Patriarchs of Tibet and Dalai Lamas. Our guide Nurbu has such knowledge of English and the history of Buddhism, that it allows us not to stay glued to him and to walk independently, so this is the main advantage. But he is a nice guy - so we'll see what's to come.
The locals traditionally busily offer the local souvenirs - prayer drums, beads, etc. But since Lhasa is located at a considerable altitude in general we don't care about the souvenirs now: because of the drastic change of pressure we have signs of mountain sickness - began to get a headache slightly. Moreover, we have some problems with Internet: the modems, which were supposed to be waiting for us, hadn't been bought by the Chinese side, Internet in the hotel doesn't work and this problem had forced us to go to the cafe with Wi-Fi where we found out another problem: the Chinese government doesn't permit Google and all its applications to work - Google mail, blogspot and so on. And now I am knocked out of working processes, and since this moment I will write letters using the e-mail on mail.ru, where I was forced to make an account. My assistant Nora Musatova will make all transformations of my letters into the blog posts. Greetings from Lhasa!
Despite the fact that the flight from Katmandu to Lhasa isn't long and takes a little more than an hour, in fact with the collection of the equipment and the time difference (the time in Lhasa is plus 2 hours 15 minutes to the time in Katmandu) we had a whole day. Everything started from the packing of trunks for BC and ABC, which will be deliver to Tibet by truck together with the first-aid kits. The doctor of the expedition Sergey Larin used 50-litre barrels as first-aid boxes; afterwards it had been a usual before-the-departure and after-the-departure fuss, so we checked in right before the dinner.
Day 6. April, 15. Lhasa
From the window of our hotel We have a beautiful view on the roofs of neighbouring buildings and on the mountain ridge, the plain surrounding Lhasa. I haven't been here for 11 years. For that time the city has been completely transformed: all slums, in which local people had been living, were pulled down, and now their place is taken by absolutely new buildings, stylized as traditional buildings, which roof are seen from our window. Looks picturesque...
Simultaneously with that, Chinese did a great job on transformation of the local population, its traditions and customs towards 'civilization'. All unpaved streets were paved with granite, it's extremely clean in the streets now - last time when I were here I had to watch my steps to not step in someone's poo. The amount of local inhabitants, rotating a prayer drums and walking or crawling clockwise around the temple, significantly decreased, and the amount of tourists increased correspondingly. Cutting the long story short - in front of the eyes the extremely dirty, but very lively and authentic city is turning into the grandiose tourist facility.
We could not skip the traditional excursion to the Palace of Dalai Lama - Potala. In 2004 the inside walls of the Palace were so dirty, that after touching them you had to go and wash your hands with soap. An incredible dirt appeared because of the illumination of the Palace with lampads filled with yak's fat - while they are burning they give an oily soot. The floor was covered with dirty fat as well, its thickness was about 5-7 cm. All this dirt was somehow removed, the amount of lampads was redused to minimum.
Thus, the Potala Palace now is somewhere in the middle between a living temple and such an object like Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which has quite relative affiliation with religion. But nevetheless the locals still bring the yak's fat in the little bags and put it into the lampads as their fee for the process of burning. Unfortunately, it is stricltly forbidden to take photos inside the Potala Palace. In general the palace makes a strong impression, its red visible elements are made of the ends of the painted rods, where you can put the small paper money - 1 Jiao. Thereby it has certain similarity with Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
The locals traditionally busily offer the local souvenirs - prayer drums, beads, etc. But since Lhasa is located at a considerable altitude in general we don't care about the souvenirs now: because of the drastic change of pressure we have signs of mountain sickness - began to get a headache slightly. Moreover, we have some problems with Internet: the modems, which were supposed to be waiting for us, hadn't been bought by the Chinese side, Internet in the hotel doesn't work and this problem had forced us to go to the cafe with Wi-Fi where we found out another problem: the Chinese government doesn't permit Google and all its applications to work - Google mail, blogspot and so on. And now I am knocked out of working processes, and since this moment I will write letters using the e-mail on mail.ru, where I was forced to make an account. My assistant Nora Musatova will make all transformations of my letters into the blog posts. Greetings from Lhasa!
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