September 7 Potala Palace, Barkhor Square, and residual notes on the train

We ran out of energy before mentioning that the train route is the highest in the world, passes through the highest tunnel, is served by the highest station, crosses over a thousand kilometers of permafrost, and passes by the highest freshwater lake. We started at Xining at 7,200 feet, traveled mostly at around 12,000-13,000, and crossed a pass at over16,000 feet. 'Nuff said.

After a nice dinner at our Shambhala Palace Hotel roof, which has a good view of the Potala, we took our elevation sickness prevention pills and crashed. We rose with difficultly but after a wonderful breakfast of a yak cheese omelet for Leslie and banana pancakes for David, fresh fruit, fresh orange juice, coffee and tea we were ready to do one of the items listed in the Lonely Planet Guidebook. If you arrive in Lhasa remember to take things easy the first day or two: it is not uncommon to feel breathless, suffer from headaches and sleep poorly because of the altitude. Don't attempt the steps up the Potala, the residence for each of the successive Dalai Lama's since 1700 until 1959, for the first few days. So from the schedule we had worked out with the tour company we were not doing the Potala until Thursday but yesterday our guide told us we had our timed tickets for this morning at 10:20am. We asked him to try and change that back to the agreed schedule of Thursday. He stopped by while we were having dinner last night to let us know he had not been able to change the tickets so we would go earlier so that we would have more time to get up to the actual residence/palace area. We had to be at that entrance point at 10:20 and then had one hour to go through the three floors of the residence. We moved forward our breakfast plans so that we would be leaving at 9am we thought we would take a taxi to the bottom of the hill but we ended up walking about a mile before we could catch a taxi to the base of the Potala. Both of us carried one of our walking sticks and we were very grateful to have it as the steps were large, steep and uneven. We were both out of breath, wheezing and needing to take rests. We got to the appointed spot just a minute or two before our entrance time.

No pictures were allowed once we went in and also no water. Fortunately they sold souvenir books, photo cards, and bottled water for which we grateful. The Potala is an amazing place, very colorful, mystical, and empty except for the pilgrims and tourists going through it. All the chapels within it's grounds still have active pilgrims coming so you saw pilgrims with their prayer wheels going reciting the mantra with their 108 prayer beads, and some would be prostrating themselves every ten feet or so, others would be making donations at the many, many old shrines.  
The Potala is the traditional center of power in Tibet and contains the stupas with the remains of many of the Dalai Lamas, each of which is distinctive and often finished in gold, so it is also a treasure trove. Many Buddhist scriptures stored there are over a thousand years old. We were happy that we were able to get up all the stairs to see it!

We had a good Tibetan lunch at one of the few restaurants that tour guides take Western tourists to called called Lhasa Kitchen.  We saw several groups of Westerners come in, some with perhaps twenty people, and we were grateful we were on our own especially because we could say it was nap time! The meal cost about $14 for the three of us.

After a nap break in our hotel, our guide Phinsock met us and took us walking from our hotel through the old town's alleys and many small stores for everything from fresh noodles or local bread to pilgrim supplies, incense, thangkas, turquoise, coral, eye beads, clothes, wool coats, furniture, painted tin trunks, etc.

In China we can only post to the blog via email and do not seem to be able to include in the email photo attachments using the iPad. In pages the photos and write up look good.will review options tomorrow.