Circles

The Chinese government is keen to boast that it has developed tourism in Tibet. Well, it certainly has... bringing in tourbus-loads of mainly rich Chinese and charging them obscene entrance fees to all of the attractions. Potala Palace - 100RMB (15USD), Jokhang - 70RMB, Drepung Gompa - 55RMB. To put things into perspective - the average monthly salary here seems to be 250RMB. I spend under 5-7US per day - living in a clean dorm, eating good food, emailing, taking local busses.

But I found a solution : the kora. Walked 3 times around the Potala with a horde of prayer-wheel spinning grannies yesterday. Almost cried when they started to prostrate. 3 koras of the Jokhang are behind me also. A different atmosphere, given the tourist-infestation. At 10pm, a kid literally grabbed onto me screaming, 'money! money!' I gave him a hug, ruffled his hair, and said 'no'.

Sera Gompa - another kora. Drepung - the highlight of my stay in Lhasa. A young monk waved to us from under a tree, then led us through a side-entrance, gave us a tour of the place, then insisted on feeding us - all just because it was his day off (also the cops day off), and he was keen to practice his English.

Today I went to the seat of the main Oracle. Very tantric temple - mostly wrathful protector deities (the 100 tooth, 100 eyeball type), pictures of mutilated human corpses. The workers patting down the new roof were the highlight - sang and danced as they did their job.

Even after Kailash, I feel that I should burn more karma. After all, I hadn't done that many evil things in this lifetime. So, I have a new insane plan - the holiest pilgrimage in Tibet. If it goes ahead, I'm disappearing for 3 weeks.