Lhasa Things to Do

The Norbulinka summerpalace is situated in a beautifull garden. Many Tibetans visit this garden for a picnic or just a walk. Also there are performances of Tibetan dances and opera in this garden at the end of July. We were just one week too late.

In the garden you have a great view at the colourful architecture of the palaces. In one of the courtyards you can also find the remnants of an old dodge and two austins. These first cars in Tibet were brought there in pieces by yaks over the Himalayas.

The Norbulinka, meaning ''precious jewel island'', was the summerpalace of the Dalai Lama. In comparision with the Potala this palace is small. The Norbilinka has three palaces, stuated in a beautifull garden.

You can visit the rooms of the Dalai Lama, for example the bed- bath- and living room, in which you can see the old Philips radio of the Dalai Lama. Further we visited the meditation room, the reception room and the throne room.

At the Barkhor, the inner pilgrim circuit of Lhasa round the Jokhang Temple, you see always a lot of pilgrims with their prayer-wheels. They turn the prayerwheels with a turn of the wrist and keep it spinning around its axis. In the spinning prayerwheels are sacred formulas like OM MANI PADME HOM.

At the same moment the pilgrims normally round the holy places in the clockwise direction. It was peculiar, that the devotees on the picture were walking in the opposite direction.

They told us, that the pilgrims believe, that they by their own circumambulation and the spinning of their prayerwheels evoke the movements of the planets in the heavens, the dance of the electrons around the nucleus and the recurring circle of life.

At the lifely Barkhor you can find little shops and marketstalls, but also a lot of streetvendors everywhere around. You can find almost everything.

There are a lot of prayerflag sellers, but you can buy also herbs, spices, old coins, stones like turquoise, coral, necklaces, earrings, daggers and a lot of ornaments of which I didn't know the meaning. I found myself nice colourful Tibetan hats.

At the Barkhor are a lot of stalls and shops, where you can buy almost everything, for example we saw this stall with colourfull new thangka's.

These rectangular thangkas are religious paintings on cotton or linen, that can be rolled up. Red or yellow silk is used for the border and another piece of silk or brocade serves as a mount. The rolled thangkas can easy be transported by nomads and travelling Buddhist monks. Often the thangka have a depiction of the life of Buddha.

The Jokhang Temple is surrounded by the Barkhor. The Barkhor is the inner pilgrim circuit of Lhasa, shaped in the form of an octagon. You have to go round in the clockwise direction.

Along the Barkhor you can find a lot of marketstalls, shops and streetvendors. It is a very lifely place to go and to spend some time to look at the the daily life of the Tibetan people and devotees or do some shopping.

In the Sera Monastery, as in all monasteries, you can find butter lamps, burning perpetually before statues and images. The lamps are replenished by the dignitaires or villagers.

In front of statues, thangkas and stupas in Tibet you will find vessels for reception of offerings from devotees, usually containing five different elements: water, flowerseeds, incense, tsampa and butter for the lamps. These five kinds of offerings stand for the five aspects of wisdom and the five senses, the dhyani-Buddhas.

In contrast to other Tibetan monasteries, the Jokhang Temple is used by people of all the different sects of Buddhism and has not an own monastic community. All kind of pilgrims with different dialects, faces, clothes and colours come to visit the Temple and the Barkhor.

At the square in front of the Jokhang Temple you see a lot of small streetstalls, selling goods at the pilgrims, like scarfs, flags and thangkas. From the Temple you have a good view at this always busy square.