Everyone should get to the country of Tibet and its capital Lhasa before it is destroyed even more by the Chinese government. Much like Mongolia, the scenery is amazing bit it is the Tibetan people that drew me in…..they were so happy we had a few words in Tibetan and as usual enchanted by the kids. My beard and general weirdness has also been a draw and I am now immortalised in many Tibetans photo collections.
Tibet
Tibet, the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas have had a long history. The current exiled Dalai Lama is the 14th. The Dalai Lama deals with the political aspects of Tibet. The Panchen Lama deals with the spiritual side of Tibet Buddhism. The current imposter is the 11th. The now famous Dalai Lama found the reincarnation of the last Panchen Lama (he died in 1989) but this child was kidnapped by the Chinese government and replaced with the current fake, thus the beginning of the end of Tibetan Buddhism).
China invaded Tibet in the 50s and has imported Han Chinese into Tibet ever since. Hong Kong folks will recognise this model of take over. The Chinese call it the peaceful liberation of Tibet while Tibetans would disagree and hate the oppressors. All benefits go to the incoming Chinese and the Tibet’s got nothing other than great road infrastructure. They are not allowed to leave what is left of Tibet ( as a lot of Tibet was taken over by other Chinese provinces). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_(1912–1951)
Two histories and two tours
China, like all current ‘empires’ changes their own history and keeps it own people in the dark. When talking to other tour groups, we found out the Chinese tours are completely different than the western tours – they are fed the fake history and propaganda of the current revisionist Chinese government. They also mirror the flag waving, fake, enforced patriotism now rampant in certain parts of the West… every house/ shack across Tibet has to wave a Chinese flag and have pictures of the five dictators/ mass murderers – Mao, Deng, Hu, Wei and the new emeperor Xi. Police check and people are fined if flag and photo not found. So very sad. Every part of Lhasa had checkpoints and shakedowns particularly for the locals. As a result the local people seemed to like western tourists so we had an amazing time.
Lhasa
We have been lucky enough to see Tibet before the death of Tibetan Buddhism. Thus any tour of Tibet, and Lhasa, focuses on the monasteries and palaces of the faith. First and foremost when one thinks of Lhasa is the huge Potala Palace, one former home of the Dalai Lama before the invasion, cultural devolution and great leap backwards of the communists. There are 2 Lhasas – one the old Lhasa where all building are restricted in height to not exceed the central golden temple. The other is a garish ‘ghost town’ of ugly high rises where the Chinese community lives. Lhasa is at 3600 metres and we flew in so altitude sickness was a possibility – we did ok but I got a bit of insomnia…
