Day 7 (1/3) - Potala Palace

After a night of rest and then some, I woke up refreshed and free of the headache that bothered me the day before. However, walking up and down the stair was still a reminder that I was in Lhasa.

Because the Potala palace ticket was hard to get and time was limited, we had to arrive at 8AM. I took this picture of the street view around my hotel while waiting for the tour guide. We were in the west side of the town and the buildings were mostly traditional Tibetan. The people on the street were mostly Tibetan as well.


Potala Palace - formal residence of Dalai Lama and Tibetan Kings. The morning was cloudy and cold. Luckily it was not raining.


Potala palace was just minutes from our hotel. We enter from the group tour gate. Upon arrival, we were told that we only had one hour inside the palace. We were quite disappointed naturally. All the group tour had preset time limit, if the tour guide did not control the time, the tour company would be penalized according to my guide. Individual visitors did not have time limit, but one has to line up the day before to put down name in hope to obtain a ticket for the next day. Since the ticket is limited, the availability is not guaranteed. Scalper is not an option either as passport registration is required for each ticket purchased.

On the other hand, only 2000 and 500 tickets are allocated for group and individual tourists respectively each day. There were estimated 400,000 tourists in Tibet in July alone, tickets were hard to come by. Later in the trip, we learned that it was rumored that tourist access to Potala palace may be further limited, or shut down completely next year. We were glad that we got to see it no matter how short amount of time we had.


We had to climb again - luckily, the one hour time did not start ticking until we reach the entrance at the top. It took us an hour or so just to get up to the entrance at the top.

Picture was not allowed inside Potala palace. As one would imagine, there were lots of priceless religious artifacts displayed inside the palace.



Potala palace ticket! But only one hour for us inside :-(

The palace had two main sections, the red palace and the white palace. The history of Potala palace goes way back to 7th century, built by Songtsen Gampo in 637AD to greet his bride Tang princess Wen-Cheng. Potrang Carpo, the white palace was added in 1648. Potrang Marpo, the red palace, was added in 1694AD. Check out wikipedia for more information on Potala palace.


The picture on the left is the entrance which is on the side of white palace. There were a lot of tour groups in the palace, some with loud tour guides. There were a lot of statues and artifacts for prayers, bring plenty of changes if you would like to donate. One interesting Tibetan offering to god is butter. The offered butter was placed inside a butter lamp.

Personally, the most notables were the stupa tombs of previous Dalai Lamas and Mandalas. The stupa tomb of the 5th Dalai Lama was the grandest of them all, build with tons of pure gold.


This is the picture at the exit. This was on the red palace side.


Potala palace stone at the bottom of the foothill.

We spent exactly an hour inside. It was magnificent. Words could not describe the amazing Tibetan treasures housed in Potala palace. For my father-in-law who was well versed in Buddhism, there was a much deeper appreciation for what we saw.

Coming down the hill was slightly easier, but no cake walk. We took our sweet time as usual.

Our next stop was Jokhang Temple and Barkhor street. Before heading there, we stopped at a local restaurant for breakfast.


Tibetan women in traditional dress.


I ordered chili potato which was a Tibetan dish. The spice felt like curry with chili.

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