[:en]Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet[:fr]Ensemble historique du Palais du Potala[:]

By skyangelo
This post is part of the series Tibet trip
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[:en]After one good night of sleep in a real bed in the hotel, we went to visit the famous Potala Palace, where we could see the whole palace just from the balcony of our hotel room! Our hotel was located in a huge shopping mall area with all the western shops (including 👯).

The historic ensemble of the Potala Palace is inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list and it includes:
1. Potala Palace (since 1994)
2. Jokhang Temple (since 2000), as extensions to the sites
3. Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s former summer palace (since 2001), as extensions to the sites

Initially we would have visited the three sites in the same day, but in the afternoon after climbing up to the Potala Palace, “a small stop with oxygen mask ☤” for the parents was needed…

Potala Palace

Chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama during the Tibetan uprising in 1959.
There are the White Palace, the former living quarters of Dalai Lama, and the Red Palace, devoted to Buddhist study and prayer. There were restauration work around the White Palace and we saw Chinese Army around the corner of the roof monitoring all the work… (strange feel of the so-called Tibet “Autonomous” Region).
I think we went to probably the highest public toilet in a museum at that time near the White Palace.

View from the hotel
White Palace
View from the hotel

Jokhang Temple

The most sacred and important temple in Tibet for Tibetan Buddhists.
The temple is considered as the “spiritual heart of the city”.
It is located in the city center with lots of commercial streets…
We can see the Potala Palace from the roof of the temple.

Norbulingka

The summer residence of Dalai Lama (till the 14th’s exile in 1959).
The annual yogurt festival (Sho Dun Festival) is held there.


P.S. We saw a water heater device using solar energy.

Tibetan jewelry: Dzi bead (天珠, literal translation: heaven pearls)

P1000457
There were a lot of jewelry shops selling Dzi bead necklace and bracelet…
I don’t know why but got the feeling that a lot of them are fake…
We ended up buying some from the supposedly authentic shop in the temple.
Few years later, my Dzi bead broke up into two pieces and I was almost certain that it was fake as I couldn’t see any visual external pattern inside the bead.[:]

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