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THE PALACE OF POTALA
10 DECEMBER 2014
The Palais du Potala, so often seen in photo is that it will appear before our eyes.
Arrived in front, we can not help but launch a Whouhahou !! Much more majestic than imagined when looking at the pictures. It's huge! We could almost imagine an immense ship on an immense wave. We enter by a special tourist entrance, the monks do not have the choice they must make a detour ...
The palace for simplification is divided into two sections:
- The white palace is assigned to the residential area of the Dalai Lama, which dominates a central courtyard painted yellow, used for religious ceremonies and dances.
- The Red Palace dedicated him to theology and Buddhist prayers.
The place is just amazing !!! We are once again the only westerners, there are a small number of Chinese tourists, otherwise they are only pilgrims. If the building is of a gigantic proportion the rooms are not so high and yet we sometimes feel the same feeling of vertigo that one can feel when visiting a cathedral in Europe.
In passing before the tombs of the Dalai Lamas, we are subjugated by the wealth deployed, especially that of the fifth Dalai Lama who is at the initiative of the reconstruction of the palace in the XVIIth Century. Its tomb is the largest and most richly decorated, it is also where the pilgrims stay the most time to pray and collect the most offering (the pilgrims walk with bundles of small Deposits as and when the statues, altars, and other objects of devotions).
Everything is fabulous beautiful natural lights illuminate the monks, I miss beautiful pictures because it is forbidden to take pictures inside, but I keep them in my heart. We just hate not being able to share them with you?
The monks who live in the monastery are responsible for guarding the rooms visited.
I exchanged a look with one of them, then the gestures follow, he understood that I would have liked to take more time and that to follow the imposed rhythm of a guide (see the previous article) does not It does not suit me, it smiles you could even laugh at it, but the place does not lend itself to it. This moment lasts barely fifteen seconds but this moment of humanity will remain engraved like one of my best memories of China.
We do not close our eyes, we know that the palace of the Potala is also called Chinese museum and that the money of the tickets leaves in the coffers of the government, we would have preferred that it is entirely devoted to the maintenance and the Renovation of the temple, sometimes you have to compromise ...
The afternoon will be reserved for another superb visit that of the temple of Jonqhang.
After our day in Lhasa, wake up very early, the road will be long today, more than 5OO kms for 11H of roads! Yes the rhythms are not very fast, but the roads are of a qualities often remarkable, but punctuated by police stations where every time the driver must get out of the car to have his paper stamped with a time imposed to respect . So we stop 500 m before this "checkpoint" and we wait for long minutes to leave and rarely exceeding 60 KMh. This day seems to us interminable fortunately that the landscapes are formidable and that once again we beat our altitude record by approaching the 5200 M !!!
It is with joy that we arrive in the middle of the night at our hotel chosen by the agency. Agency which I remind you that we were forced to take to have access to Tibet. If the hotel room has good bedding, on the other hand bad surprise not at all running water and especially no heating and we are at 4400 M altitude! Hard hard when we're already both well-aged. We regret not being hosted by the resident as we had originally requested at the agency, at least we would have known the Tibetan habitat and a bit of human warmth, the good bedding we do not care about Little one is accustomed now to hard.
We leave early, without breakfasts. The Tibetan landscapes remain a pleasure of the eyes and again we exceed the 5000M! The guide proposes us to stop at noon to eat, we prefer to continue to be at the earliest at the Nepalese border and thus allow to join Kathmandu to make as quickly as possible our visa request for India.
We are delighted to find the forest, which we had lost sight of since we entered China. Moreover, it is a primary forest (intact or original forest, and with a high degree of Which has never been exploited, or fragmented, directly or manifestly influenced by man. We pass quickly from 5200 M to 1600 M! I imagine here a stage of the tour de France, it would be a real hecatomb! It had already been noticed that from 3500 M the lighters no longer function due to lack of oxygen.
The surprise when entering China was to discover as a first animal a camel at liberty! This time we are surprised like last animal to see two monkeys installed in the middle of the road. China will have surprised us until the last moment!
Here we are at the border, as soon as we set foot on the ground, we are surrounded by many people, one to exchange money another to take us directly to Kathmandu and the others we do not know too much ... We are completely Destabilized, this world on one side and we on the other, isolated by a significant deafness and disoriented by the clogged ears with such a descent of altitude. It will take us several hours to regain all our senses.
We cross the Chinese border quickly, on the other side facing us, a totally different world, We see a very poor population. The customs post is summary and we access our Nepalese visas barely 10 mn after having requested, filling the papers included.
The landscape in front of us is also totally different. Gone are the great deserts, here everything is green the waterfalls are numerous. We refuse a large number of taxis (all SUVs will understand better later). We then walk many kilometers bag on the back, but the show is so beautiful around us that we forget almost the difficulty, but the 24 H without having eat a lot catches us the muscles begin to be hard and the back painful . We are really beginning to feel very tired. Seeing only crowded trucks, taxis or buses, forces us to stop our walk especially as it starts to get dark. We do not see any place to set up our camp, the situation becomes tricky ...
This is where a team of Nepalese television doing a report on the customs area passes and agrees to take us in stop.
The road gradually becomes more and more difficult, the worst roads of Aveyron in comparison would resemble highways! I had seen nothing like it or perhaps in reports on the famous rally raid "Camel trophy". We cross currents several meters wide. In the car, we look like corn kernels that pop out in pop corn so much we're banged up. Only the numerous police controls take a break.
With the approach of Kathmandu the road improves. We stop in a small restaurant to eat with the whole team. We sympathize and we even offer accommodation nearby Kathmandu. When we arrived the whole family of our host of one evening welcomed us with big smiles and everyone folded in four to make the best.
The next day they want to offer us the bus to Kathmandu; The father of the family will accompany us directly to the embassy of India.
This tour of the world definitely unveils to us many people with great human wealth!
10 DECEMBER 2014
The Palais du Potala, so often seen in photo is that it will appear before our eyes.
Arrived in front, we can not help but launch a Whouhahou !! Much more majestic than imagined when looking at the pictures. It's huge! We could almost imagine an immense ship on an immense wave. We enter by a special tourist entrance, the monks do not have the choice they must make a detour ...
The palace for simplification is divided into two sections:
- The white palace is assigned to the residential area of the Dalai Lama, which dominates a central courtyard painted yellow, used for religious ceremonies and dances.
- The Red Palace dedicated him to theology and Buddhist prayers.
The place is just amazing !!! We are once again the only westerners, there are a small number of Chinese tourists, otherwise they are only pilgrims. If the building is of a gigantic proportion the rooms are not so high and yet we sometimes feel the same feeling of vertigo that one can feel when visiting a cathedral in Europe.
In passing before the tombs of the Dalai Lamas, we are subjugated by the wealth deployed, especially that of the fifth Dalai Lama who is at the initiative of the reconstruction of the palace in the XVIIth Century. Its tomb is the largest and most richly decorated, it is also where the pilgrims stay the most time to pray and collect the most offering (the pilgrims walk with bundles of small Deposits as and when the statues, altars, and other objects of devotions).
Everything is fabulous beautiful natural lights illuminate the monks, I miss beautiful pictures because it is forbidden to take pictures inside, but I keep them in my heart. We just hate not being able to share them with you?
The monks who live in the monastery are responsible for guarding the rooms visited.
I exchanged a look with one of them, then the gestures follow, he understood that I would have liked to take more time and that to follow the imposed rhythm of a guide (see the previous article) does not It does not suit me, it smiles you could even laugh at it, but the place does not lend itself to it. This moment lasts barely fifteen seconds but this moment of humanity will remain engraved like one of my best memories of China.
We do not close our eyes, we know that the palace of the Potala is also called Chinese museum and that the money of the tickets leaves in the coffers of the government, we would have preferred that it is entirely devoted to the maintenance and the Renovation of the temple, sometimes you have to compromise ...
The afternoon will be reserved for another superb visit that of the temple of Jonqhang.
FROM LHASSA TO KATMANDU
11 DECEMBER 2014
After our day in Lhasa, wake up very early, the road will be long today, more than 5OO kms for 11H of roads! Yes the rhythms are not very fast, but the roads are of a qualities often remarkable, but punctuated by police stations where every time the driver must get out of the car to have his paper stamped with a time imposed to respect . So we stop 500 m before this "checkpoint" and we wait for long minutes to leave and rarely exceeding 60 KMh. This day seems to us interminable fortunately that the landscapes are formidable and that once again we beat our altitude record by approaching the 5200 M !!!
It is with joy that we arrive in the middle of the night at our hotel chosen by the agency. Agency which I remind you that we were forced to take to have access to Tibet. If the hotel room has good bedding, on the other hand bad surprise not at all running water and especially no heating and we are at 4400 M altitude! Hard hard when we're already both well-aged. We regret not being hosted by the resident as we had originally requested at the agency, at least we would have known the Tibetan habitat and a bit of human warmth, the good bedding we do not care about Little one is accustomed now to hard.
We leave early, without breakfasts. The Tibetan landscapes remain a pleasure of the eyes and again we exceed the 5000M! The guide proposes us to stop at noon to eat, we prefer to continue to be at the earliest at the Nepalese border and thus allow to join Kathmandu to make as quickly as possible our visa request for India.
We are delighted to find the forest, which we had lost sight of since we entered China. Moreover, it is a primary forest (intact or original forest, and with a high degree of Which has never been exploited, or fragmented, directly or manifestly influenced by man. We pass quickly from 5200 M to 1600 M! I imagine here a stage of the tour de France, it would be a real hecatomb! It had already been noticed that from 3500 M the lighters no longer function due to lack of oxygen.
The surprise when entering China was to discover as a first animal a camel at liberty! This time we are surprised like last animal to see two monkeys installed in the middle of the road. China will have surprised us until the last moment!
Here we are at the border, as soon as we set foot on the ground, we are surrounded by many people, one to exchange money another to take us directly to Kathmandu and the others we do not know too much ... We are completely Destabilized, this world on one side and we on the other, isolated by a significant deafness and disoriented by the clogged ears with such a descent of altitude. It will take us several hours to regain all our senses.
We cross the Chinese border quickly, on the other side facing us, a totally different world, We see a very poor population. The customs post is summary and we access our Nepalese visas barely 10 mn after having requested, filling the papers included.
The landscape in front of us is also totally different. Gone are the great deserts, here everything is green the waterfalls are numerous. We refuse a large number of taxis (all SUVs will understand better later). We then walk many kilometers bag on the back, but the show is so beautiful around us that we forget almost the difficulty, but the 24 H without having eat a lot catches us the muscles begin to be hard and the back painful . We are really beginning to feel very tired. Seeing only crowded trucks, taxis or buses, forces us to stop our walk especially as it starts to get dark. We do not see any place to set up our camp, the situation becomes tricky ...
This is where a team of Nepalese television doing a report on the customs area passes and agrees to take us in stop.
The road gradually becomes more and more difficult, the worst roads of Aveyron in comparison would resemble highways! I had seen nothing like it or perhaps in reports on the famous rally raid "Camel trophy". We cross currents several meters wide. In the car, we look like corn kernels that pop out in pop corn so much we're banged up. Only the numerous police controls take a break.
With the approach of Kathmandu the road improves. We stop in a small restaurant to eat with the whole team. We sympathize and we even offer accommodation nearby Kathmandu. When we arrived the whole family of our host of one evening welcomed us with big smiles and everyone folded in four to make the best.
The next day they want to offer us the bus to Kathmandu; The father of the family will accompany us directly to the embassy of India.
This tour of the world definitely unveils to us many people with great human wealth!