Day 8 - shigatse - Birthday Girl

1 Oct 2008

today , wednesday its a special day coz its Geraldine birthday also China celebrated National Day too but not like in Beijing or any city in China so crowded, rush , people everywhere , in here i feel no body care about 1st oct.


the birthday Girl

Anyway we are ready for our next journey. We are in Shigatse city, its about 250 km southwest of lhasa. Shigatse is the second largest city of Tibet.In shigatse have many monastery , the famous is tashilhunpo monastery. We arrived at Tashilhunpo Monastery around 7.30 am and I saw before The monastery open many people pray in front of the monastery.



Shigatse’s main attraction is tashilhunpo monastery, the seat of the Panchen lama. Built in 1447 by a nephew of Tsongkhapa , the monastery once house over 4000 monks , but there are now only 600.


Apart from a giant stute of Jampa (Maitreya) Buddha (nearly 27 m high) in the temple of the Maitreya , the monastery is also famed for its Grand Hall , which houses the opulent tomb (containing 85 kg of gold and masses of jewels) of the fourth Panchen Lama.




It was pretty unbelievable seeing this huge sculpture inside the chapel built for it.


The one thing I noticed with every house no matter how small or old it was was that they all had colors. Whether it was around the door trim or along the roof line every home was painted with blue, red, yellow, and green. I thought that was incredible.

Later we drove along the Lhasa River which flows through the river valley. The river was huge and eventually turned into the Brahmaputra River that flows all the way down to India. The way the Ganges mountains reflected on the river like a mirror was awesome. In places it was as still as glass and in others it rocked like the ocean. We drive back to Lhasa. We arrived at lhasa around 4 pm , and we planning visit norbulingka ( 罗布林卡国家公园）– jewel park – its was Dalai lama’s summer palace since the 7th dalai lama from the 1780s up until thePRC takeover in the late 1950s. Actually norbulingka its not in our schedule but we still have time to visit the park and we pay ticket for RMB 70 / person because we are foreigner but only RMB 2 for Tibetans . Its was quite a different experience visiting Norbulingka compared with the Potala Palace. the park is crowded with picnickers, traditional Tibetan opera performances are also held there EVEN they bring a TENT !!! maybe to enjoying the height of autumn weather I think The gardens are a favourite picnic spot in Lhasa and that time the Sho Dun festival or Yoghurt Festival but we didn’t find yoghurt shop inside hahahahaha only the colourfull flags written yoghurt festival. Walking along the road in the palace, we were amazed with the park. The park so big with several palace inside , and the weather not too hot with the chilly wind blowing, with a lot of flowers , grass . there also ZOO , yes.. inside the park there is a zoo , but the condition very bad. I think that’s a worst zoo I ever visit in china.