The End of the Lhasa Photos

I had meant to post these pictures earlier (um there was a Lhasa part 2 that never quite materialized...) but never got around to it. So here they are.

The thing about Lhasa is it is an amazing place and a beautiful place to take photos, but most of the places that you visit prohibit photos, or you have to pay a pretty penny for them (like by the room). With that said, you have seen what I came up with already, and here is the rest of it.

The first three pictures are left over from the Jokhong Temple.







The mountains in Lhasa have this amazing green lushness...


More Potala Pics...this is walking up the hill to the Potala which is like 13 stories and also sits on a hill above everything else...it takes a good walk to make it up












These are people working on the roof of the Potala in the traditional tibetan way, I wish I had a video, but if you have ever seen the movie Kundun you might have an idea of what I am talking about.


Ok these next shots are looking over Lhasa from different directions. This next one is from the Potala, and the picture after that is from the opposite direction from the top of Drepung Monastery. It is a wider angle version of one of my favorite pictures that I posted before (see Lhasa 2) that Diane was fortunate to point out to me. Here I am taking pictures like a big tourist and I almost missed the best one out of the batch!!




If you took the next four pictures and laid them side by side you would get the view from Drepung.










I remember this picture because it was coming out of this room whose ceiling was stuffed with swords, axes, and spears from wars that tibetans fought against each other. The walls had gruesome murals with dripping blood, skeletons, heads on stakes and other morbid visions.




Although I mentioned that photography is prohibited without paying some of the large temples have high ceilings and windows you can see into from the 2nd floor. As I was not inside the temple, I took the liberty of taking a few snaps... These tangkas are humongous and hang from the ceiling.










When you enter tibetan temples you almost always see murals of the 4 guardian kings...this is one of them.






See...big tangkas...


This is at Sera Monastery, there is a hermitage way up on the hill that you can see. Diane decided to hike up there and dragged our tour guide with her. They didn't quite make it but it was a valient effort.


The fun thing about going to Sera is you can watch the monks debate all afternoon. I have a really cool video of this, but it is too big to send online. It is quite surreal, all these monks standing around, debating arguing, laughing...then there are lots of tourist and foreigners standing around snapping pictures of them.




There is a whole form to the debate, it reminded me of a pitcher in baseball. Here you can see the windup before the delivery.






And here is the pitch... each time they do this they smack the right hand against the left, and challenge the other to respond. Sometimes when they get going there are a few smacks in rapid succession.


Well what is your answer???