Day 107. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.

Lhasa, Tibet oozes friendliness. Especially to our clan that sticks out like a sore yak thumb in a region that only receives 270,000 overseas tourists a year.  That means in a city of 600,000 residents, at any time, there is only a few thousand tourists at the most and almost none of them American. Given this, we are greeted with the type of hellos one might expect from a small village versus a city.  Thus far, we have had six incidents of people wanting to take our photo.  Children learning English starting at 6 years greet us with a wave and a hello that melts your heart.  And every smile given is returned with an even wider grin.  

Today we will visit Norbulingka Palace or also known as Summer Palace for the Dalia Lama.  It was first built for the 7th Dalia Lama in 1754 for his health.  The nearby hot spring helped cure a serious skin condition. This expansive park contains several buildings including a small zoo. 

Today is THE National Holiday - the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China.  How could we forget?  Red signs are plastered everywhere but in the squat toilets.  The national marketing budget must have been $1 billion dollars for all these red 70th billboards, signs, flower displays, digital displays and special red lanterns that blanketed the four cities we have visited in China.  Whoever owns the company that made the tens of millions of 70th signs can retire after this year. In short, it’s kind of a big deal here.  

As we enter the Summer Palace gardens, we see numerous Tibetan men and women gracefully dressed in their finest for afternoon picnics.  There’s a Tibetan opera performance from the 11th century that we stop to enjoy.  What are the chances? Our opera singer John soaks up the performance. Locals smile at us suggesting they are pleased at us appreciating their culture with them. 

In the gardens, we come across a herd of 60-plus sheep. Not what we expected but we have learned to “expect the unexpected”.   Which today includes spotting a four horned ram that even was a first for our tour guide Bemba.  

There are several residences for the past Dalia Lamas including the current one in exile.  Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos but our personal favorite room was a reception room in the newest palace for the current Dalia Lama. The rooms murals contained the history of Tibet from the days of creation of man to 1950s — beautifully painted in Tibetan style. Leanne wants to sneak a video of it really badly but Kyle warns her that her iPhone could be confiscated - not an outcome she seeks. 

Our guide Bemba is well versed in the history of Tibet.  He shares how previously, when over 6,000 Monasteries operated in Tibet prior to 1959, many boys were educated as monks from age 6 to age 16 when they could choose to continue to study to be monks or chose another profession. At that time, it was the only education option for children but today public government-run school system exists so the monk population has diminished greatly. 

After lunch (we try various teas, more yak dishes), we visit Sera Monastery where 300 Buddhist monks are studying at the foothills of the mountains at Lhasa’s edge.  At one point this monastery would have educated nearly 10,000 boys (girls would attend nunneries). 

We visit three large sand Mandala (4ft by 4ft) enclosed in glass. One was created 30 years ago by the monks. More pilgrims are here praying amongst us tourists. We visit a bookstore, a yak butter storage room, and a large space for congregation of the monks. 

Our guide points us up to a courtyard to take a view of something special. We hear a bunch of commotion of yelling as we approach what is known as the Debate Courtyard.  There, we witness 50 monks, divided in pairs, quizzing each other.  One standing, one sitting - it looked like a scene right out of a movie.  

The standing monks slap their hands after the partner answers a question.  Up for right, down for wrong. Kyle thought one looked like he was winding up for a baseball pitch.  The collection of 50 monks shouting questions and answers, hands smacking, monks jumping up and down produced a commotion and cacophony we hadn’t witnessed before. We are shocked to learn that this goes on for 2 hours every afternoon of the week.  It was exhausting watching them do it for 15 mins.  We don’t know how they do it 2 hours every day. Photos below. It certainly was a dramatic tutoring session, Tibetan Buddhist style, that is. Perhaps we will have to hire Tibetan Buddhist monk back in Los Angeles for the kids when we return.

We head back to the hotel to work on online lessons and off to dinner (third night at the Dunya Restaurant - loved this place.). We walk to avoid any more taxi drama. Tomorrow we start a three day journey through the Himalayas so we need an early night in and a good night of rest.  However the rest alludes us.  This time not because our hotel bed is hard as a rock. 

We are awoken by a text fraud alert from our bank. Apparently, someone in China hijacked Leanne’s ATM card info despite preventative measures like RFID wallets.  Leanne calls the bank and the agent asked if she tried to withdraw cash in Delhi, India twenty minutes ago. Leanne says she’s pretty sure she didn’t get down to India, try to withdraw cash and make it back to Tibet in 20 mins.  India and Tibet are close but not that close. Fortunately the fraudsters are unsuccessful but it does highlight a big snag in travelling we have to deal with now. We can’t figure out how have the bank send a new card to Asia and time it so it arrives at a hotel exactly when we do. Credit cards are rarely accepted in Tibet - almost as rare as even finding an ATM. Timing couldn’t be worse. Cash is king, but will we have enough?  

Maybe some friendly Tibetan will feed us!