Traveling in Tibet

Impressions of the Marco Polo Group Tour, June 2000

Note: This site is a collection of photos and impressions of a group traveling in Yunnan, PRC, and in Tibet in May and June 2000. It will be under construction for some time to come.

The photos are the property of the author of this web site. They were acquired with a Nikon Coolpix 950 camera at medium-high resolution and then manipulated with Adobe Photoshop. Click on a small photo for a larger version, albeit only in a 72 dpi version.

Map of Tibet (from Hybrid Designs)

Have a WAHAHA Break!

SAMYE MONASTERY

On Monday, June 5 we flew from Chengdu to Gonggar Airport, the airport for the Lhasa. There we met our two Tibetan guides, Yantso and Dickee Dolma.

The airport in located in the beautiful valley of the Yarlong Tsanpo River, a broad, meandering river with enormous sandbanks in and along the river. After driving east from the airport along the river, we arrived at a sandy beach where we transferred to a large, flat-bottomed boat that serves as a ferry across the river to the Samye monastery. The ferries are propelled by the same tractor engines you see all over Tibet.

Once across the river we loaded into the back of one of the ubiquitous blue trucks one finds all over China and drove off to the monastery along a dusty, rutted road, a journey of about 40 minutes.

The Samye monastery was the first in Tibet and has a history spanning over 1200 years. It was founded somewhere around 765-780 AD.

The central building of the Samye monastery is the Utse. Passing through the entrance, one passes rows of prayer wheels, and enters the assembly hall. (Additional photos: Monks, protector buddha.)

TSEDANG

After visiting Samye, we proceeded to the city of Tsedang. The next morning, Tuesday, June 6, our first stop was at a village school. Our tour leader, Gerald Hatherley, noted that the school is essentially self-supporting. We visited the classrooms for grades 1-3 where the children were reading in Tibetan texts. The children sang to us, and some of our group sang the "Teapot" song in return.

We proceeded further south from Tsedang along a valley, coming to the Yumbu Lagang. It is generally agreed that this is the oldest extant structure in Tibet, although it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (and rebuilt in 1982). Some believe the structure was built in 247 BC by an early ruler of Tibet. Others believe it was built in 433 AD by King Lhatotori Nyentsen, the 28th ruler of Tibet. The structure sits on a rocky promontory overlooking the valley, and higher still on the mountain side is a collection of prayer flags.

The next stop was at a farm house in the valley. We visited with the family's kitchen to see the butter churn and stove. We also saw pieces of cow or yak dung--which is used as fuel--stored in a small house in the courtyard.

Finally, after lunch we went to the small monastery in Tsedang (Ganden Chokhorling), and then walked through the town, visiting shops and some homes along the way.

The monastery was built in 1351 and was reconstructed in the 18th century to suit the needs of the tenets of the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat sect. Inside Dickee showed us tsampa (roast barley flour) and religious symbols made of yak butter. We examined the wall paintings and thangkas (religious paintings framed on brocade).