Chapter III: Lhasa - Temples, Incense, Praying...Oh my!

After 24 hours of a sleepless journey from Western China, arriving in Lhasa was a blessing.  Taking a deep breath after taking my first step off the train and onto the platform was required - at almost 3,500m above sea level, there is a notable difference with the air you're taking in around you.  It reminds me of Thanksgiving in cottage country Ontario where the air is clean and crisp, but in Lhasa, you struggle to try to get all the air that you can.

While the air deprivation helped in the light-headedness, I was on a different kind of high.  It was the excitement of being in a place where not many tourists even get to go.  One of the reasons for that is attributable to the first of what I call the three "S"s of Tibet - Security.

The minute we stepped through the station, we were whisked to a checkpoint.  In China, there are a few realities one must embrace at any checkpoint.  There are no lines, just a mass huddle of people not only shoving each other, but also sticking their passports into the Customs Officers' faces hoping for immediate approval.  While being shoved every which way by people two, three times my age, I somehow found a moment to look around and noticed the reality that Tibetans had to live with - the constant supervision of the Chinese military.  One can count at least two to three dozen officers outside the station along with the two or three groups of patrols, their boots' perfectly syncronized click-clacking like a metronome.

One of the few pictures I was able to take of the security
posts at Jokhang Market.

The security didn't let up after we left the train station either.  During our entire stay in Tibet, convoys of military vehicles would surprisingly appear out of nowhere to remind everyone that this land is a part of China.  Tourists would be reprimanded when taking photos of or anywhere near a patrol - I nearly made this mistake when pointing my camera towards a building just as a patrol walked by.  Looking out the window of our tour bus and seeing the third convoy pass us with in a matter of 20 minutes, I wondered: How does one cope with living under this constant watch of the military eye?

The faithful on their way to temple.

And the answer is quite simple - the second of my "S"s of Tibet - Spirituality.  The Tibetan people, faces toughened by the elements and decades of Chinese occupation, escape into their deep faith of Buddhism in order to forget about the realities of the men in green uniforms.  The city is dotted with temples and shrines dedicated to their worship, incense is woven into the air and everywhere you look the faithful are spinning prayer spinners while on their knees praying to the heavens on the two kilometre devotion path around the city centre.

The Potala Palace is the Mecca of the traditional Buddhist faith.  Having only been to one other spiritual epicentre of a religion, the Vatican, the Potala Palace offered a different kind of feeling of majestic beauty.  Rather than the marble of the Vatican, stone and wood are the building blocks of the Potala palace.  Built in the 17th century, the palace is divided into three portions with the dominate colours of red, white and mustard yellow dividing each part of the palace.  Climbing this palace is not an easy feat - you're easily winded if you don't pace yourself and it's hard not to feel slightly inadequate upon seeing 70-80 year old monks passing you up the steps.

The Potala Palace.

At the top, the Potala offers you a spectacular view of Lhasa - flanked by mountains, a plateau and a large river, the sight is truly breathtaking.  Which brings me to my final "S" of Tibet - Serenity.  Now it may seem strange that I would place Serenity along side Security, but I found myself staring at landscapes and listening to the sounds of nature during my entire stay in Lhasa.  The gardens of Nobulinka certainly provided much of that serene atmosphere.  As the summer home of previous Dalai Lamas, Nobulinka is a vast swatch of gardens that you rarely see in a climate as harsh as this.  Beautiful foliage surrounds the summer palace, clearly a perfect place to meditate and collect your thoughts.

The weather here was incredible during my stay.

From the top of the Potala Palace looking at the mountains and the river.

Lhasa is a beautiful city, its traditions kept alive by the faithful and perfectly curated by the military to keep a fragile peace.  The most uncomfortable experience I had in Lhasa was at the Jokhang Market and Temple.  The oldest temple in Lhasa, it was built in the 7th century and had been the seat of the Dalais for centuries before the Potala.  This market is famous for Tibetan monks protesting the occupation of their homeland by China.  Most of these monks set themselves on fire by dousing themselves with gasoline.  Within every hundred metres or so, there are large tents with two to three dozen fire extinguishers and a phalanx of guards - all prepared to deal with the horrific situation of a man on fire.  But the people of the market go about their lives as if the guards aren't there.  The peddle every type of artifact you can think of - pots, pans, prayer beads, prayer spinners, all to make a buck that they will likely donate back to the temple.

The many things you can get at the market.

Lhasa was definitely the highlight of my Tibet trip.  While there are other points of breathtaking moments (most likely because I had very little oxygen left to breath), there were also moments of deep sadness which I will share in the upcoming posts.

Spinning the golden prayer cylinders.

First Stop - Hong Kong. AKA Eat, Pray, Shop.

Ni hao, Buddha. @ Lantau Island

When I was planning my European adventure, I decided to have a brief pit stop in Hong Kong before kicking off the two month roadshow.  I had been to Hong Kong only once, when I was a five year old kid.  Needless to say, I remember nothing from that trip.  It just so happens that when I visited Hong Kong at that age, the Tian Tan Buddha that you see in the photo above wasn't even built yet.  (Fun fact: it was completed in 1993 - kinda takes the "WOW" effect away from it as I had always thought that it was some ancient monument.  Still, it's pretty fucking awesome.)

Since Cathay Pacific's hub is in HK, it just made sense to have a brief repose - 4 days, 3 nights before my 16 hour flight to London.  HK is incredibly convenient transportation wise (and cheap).  With $1 CDN = approx. $7 HKD, my budget of $200 CDN is likely to last me the entire time here (with a side trip to Macau).  


I had gathered several suggestions from my friends about what to do with my time in HK, some of them involving friends that now live here.  My sample itinerary for my four days started shaping out like this:


Day 1*: Lantau Island, Dinner with Raquel
Day 2*: Bus out to Stanley Point, Afternoon around Central HK
Day 3: Macau and Mong Kok Night Market
Day 4: Kowloon Park and Museums, Avenue of the Stars, Dinner with Sadella before my midnight flight (I wrote a secondary post to cover this part of my journey)


*Travellers Tips located at the bottom of this post.


My dad, after hearing about my spending four days in HK, asked, "what is there to do there besides shopping?"  He had a point - the shopping culture around here is crazy, which I found out during my walk around Admiralty and Causeway Bay today.  Being the traveller with many more places to go, shopping was at the bottom of my agenda.


Getting into HK midday, I decided that Friday afternoon was probably the best time to avoid the big tourist crowds at the Po Lim Monastery.  The trip out to Lantau from Kowloon takes about 40 min on the MRT (subway) and then you'll have to take a cheap (approx. $18 CDN) gondola ride to the Po Lin Monastery, which takes another 20 mins.  Given my love for gondola rides (as seen in my previous blog on the Maokong Gondola in Taipei), my excitement was palpable. 


The views from the ride were amazing.  What's great is that they give you a map with tips on points on the ride in which you get the best views for photos.  And they weren't lying...here are some of the great snapshots I took:

The buildings here are painted with bright colours.  Nice touch.

On your left, you'll see a stunning view of Lantau Island and the clouds that top the mountains like whipped cream.

On your right, you'll see the sea.

Once you arrive, you're greeted by a recreation of an old Chinese village with stores like Starbucks and Subway for those not eager to try the local cuisine.  Pretty easy to bypass this area and head to the Buddha.  Along the way, do stop and enjoy some of the arts and craft stores.  There was a huge mask outside of one that I had to take a picture of.

You'll soon come across a gate with a path lined with 12 statues - each of these statues are a guardian of an animal on the Chinese zodiac.  At the end of the path, there's a sign that causes no confusion of where the Buddha will be.

There's about ten flights of stairs for you to take to get up to the Buddha, not for the faint of heart, I saw one man huffing and puffing his way up while a monk, who was definitely in his 80s, marched right past him with the speed of a teenager.  Now that's devotion.


Once you're done with the Buddha, and it's easy for the trip to get cut short due to the fog that rolls in to make the entire area look like heaven, or a scene out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, head to the Po Lin Monastery for some quick snapshots of the amazing temple and even light some incense outside.

As the fog rolled in, I was expecting to see some ninjas fly out of the sky.

Burn some cool smelling incense.

The alter in the temple.

So after all of this walking around (the whole trip there and back took about 4.5 hours), I was one hot mess.  That's the thing with being a tourist in Asia, you're constantly sweating and need to take at least three showers a day to keep from looking like a melting candle.  A quick shower and change at my hotel and I was out to meet a friend from Toronto.  What was supposed to be a dinner (at a great, but eclectically decorated restaurant known as Satay King), turned out to be a night of dart playing at a local bar where I met my friend's new friends from the UK - Chinese people with British accents are so fascinating!  We drank until 2am, which, from what I hear is early by HK going out standards.  God, I'm old.

Satay King's weird interior decorator had a Moroccan themed style with full sized statues of famous people and pirates.  Here I am with Obama.

With that partying, I had slept in until 10am today.  One of my friends Rachael had told me to take a double decker bus to Stanley Point and spend a couple of hours walking around out by the bay.  It was worth the trip - $6 CDN was all it cost me, round trip for some amazing views of the waterfront and the south point of Hong Kong island.  Here are some of the points of interest:

The rocky pier that people write their names on (mostly couples - gag me.)

Blake Pier

Repulse Bay Beaches.

I met up with Raquel again in the afternoon and headed to the shopping districts of Admiralty and Causeway Bay to see what my dad was talking about.  The malls here make the Eaton Centre in Toronto look like a shitty strip plaza with a Biway.  Pacific Place had the most incredible washrooms ever - no wonder the line ups were long to get in there - with wood panelling and classical music, who wouldn't want to stay in there to rest after a day of shopping?  Time Square didn't disappoint either - big department stores like SOGO have set up shop and the mainland Chinese were there shelling out the cash.  During lunch at a great noodle place, the table beside us had bags upon bags of merchandise.  I could tell by their accents they were Shanghainese, which made me wonder why they would come all the way to Hong Kong just to shop when Shanghai has a pretty impressive shopping district of their own.  Oh, mainlanders, you can never understand them.

Noodle soup which I ordered that was supposed to contain beef, but came with mushrooms instead.
Best not to ask questions.

Time Square - feed your consumerism.

Pacific Place - I rate the washrooms here a 14 stars out of 10.

That brings an end to two of my four days in HK.  Headed to Macau tomorrow for what promises to be a day filled with walking, historical monuments and Portuguese food and drink - a great preview for what I can expect when I actually go to Portugal next Thursday.


And with that - I bid you all a good night.


TRAVELLER'S TIPS:
** Note: Costs are all quoted leaving from Kowloon's Yau Ma Tei Station.  If you're staying on the HK side, costs might go deviate by 7HKD as the MTR pricing to cross the bay is that amount.


Getting to Tsim Sha Tsui - EAT
- Take the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui (otherwise known as TST) 4 min by MTR, or 4HKD - just over $0.50 CAD
- Head out gate B2 - you'll end up in shopping and eating Mecca
- I recommend walking one street down and over and eating at Satay King in Camvaron Plaza (5th floor) near Cameron and Camvaron intersection
- Try the Ribena and Green tea drink and eat the glass noodles with beef curry and try the naan like bread with yellow curry dip.  A meal between two people shouldn't cost more than 200 HKD or less than $30 CAD.
- Take pictures of the decor and post your funny comments to Facebook.


Getting to Lantau Island - PRAY
- Take the MTR to Tung Chung Station (35 mins by MTR, 16 HKD or $2.25 CAD)
- Exit at Gate B, Head towards Nyong Ping 360 Cable Car (past the bus depot)
- Head up escalators to the paying platform (note the payment centre at the bottom of the escalators are for the buses only, NOT the cable cars.
- get in Non-Reserved line up - 125 HKD is a roundtrip ticket ($18 CAD)
- must see are the Buddha, Po Lin Monastery, there's a Starbucks with free wifi near the cable car exit if you need it.


Getting to Stanley by Bus - SHOP
- Take the MTR to Admiralty Station (10 min by MTR, 11 HKD or $1.75 CAD)
- Exit at Gate B, exit the station and walk right to the #6 bus stop.  You'll know you're there when you see Pacific Place and large office towers across the street.  
- Take the #6 or 6X to Stanley (7.90 HKD or $1.10 CAD to get there)
- Sit at the top of the double decker on the left hand side window to get the best views and picture taking opportunities 
- Get off at Stanley Market (should take 50 mins depending on traffic)
- If you like shopping, spend time at the market, if not, head to the Promenade and to the left you'll have the beach, to the right, you'll have Blair pier and a Junk Boat cruise.  There's also a food area near the pier for you to stop and eat either at a restaurant or at Starbucks (again for the free wifi).  A number of restaurants are situated along the pier overlooking the water - they are pricier, but worth the view and the people watching opportunities.