Lhasa – Rainy Day (Again)
August 21, 2005
It’s raining hard again in Lhasa. It’s my 4th day here and there are only two types of days: cloudy or rainy. I have heard that Jokhang Temple is opening for visitors without ticket early in the morning, at 8 am, as the pilgrims are allowed to enter. But today is exception. It seems that there is a VIP woman visiting the temple at 8, and the door is shut for anybody else, including the Tibetan pilgrims.
I give up the idea of visiting Jokhang Temple, and I am not so willing of paying 70 yuan of entrance fee. As a Buddhist, I feel it’s really strange that a worshipping place requests an expensive enforced ticket fee to visitors.
Bored in Lhasa…. Due to my illness I have to take a rest one more day here, wasting money of doing nothing… Cant take photo either as it’s raining the whole day. Anyhow, tomorrow I have to leave this city. Frankly speaking, 4 days in Lhasa I visited none of its tourism attraction. But I am happy here as I met some very nice monks with very deep conversation.
ticket fee is really high these days,maybe the attraction are only open for rich men.
take care of yourself
wish you a smooth journey in the next days:)
btw: where is your old blog site?i even don’t know that
Dont worry. You didn’t miss so much by not visiting Jokhang, Ming. Sure it is fascinating and is one of the most important sites in Tibet for Tibetans, for sure. But during the Cultural Revolution much of it was smashed to pieces and defiled anyway. It was even used as a military barracks by the CLA at one point. Much of what we see today there is a case of restoration. What really convinced me of the “Showpiece” theme going on Tibet, was a cafe at the top level of the Jokhang. Again, more evidence that Tibet’s Monastic past has been reduced in a large way to a museum piece now. Jokhang is still of very crucial importance to Tibetan’s themselves though. That cannot be denied. What we can take solace in though, is that before the invasion, most foreign visitors were not allowed to come anywhere near Monasterys or such important sites. So at least we get a look at them now (as long as we have the cash to hand over, of course).