A Palace Visit

For some reason I keep waking up at 4:00am, not sure why this happens. I tried going back to sleep but I couldn’t. So I worked on editing photos and journaling. At 6:30am Thomas and I got up and dressed. At 7:00am we went down to the restaurant for some breakfast and coffee. There wasn’t anything great so we ended up eating cereal and having coffee and then returned to our room. We got our things together for the day and then at 8:45am we went down to the lobby to meet the group for our excursion.

At 9:00am we arrived at Potala Palace. Visiting the palace is an ordeal. I don’t know all the details because Viking handled most everything. But what I do know is that we had to have our passports and a ticket with our passport numbers on them. Then we had to go through three security checkpoints before we could actual start climbing the stairs to get into the palace. Once we were through the third checkpoint we started climbing. There is a series of switchbacks consisting of steps and ramps that get you up to the entry into the palace. So we climbed, and climbed and climbed. Our tour guide told us that to get from the entrance gate to the roof of the top floor of the palace it is about 999 stairs. Not sure if that is true but it was a lot. You climb up to this courtyard and along the way you can take pictures. But as you enter the palace on wooden stairs (there are three stairs side by side, the middle one is only used by the Dalai Lama and he hasn’t been to the palace since 1959) and enter into a small room then you can no longer take pictures. We toured the White Palace and the Red Palace. The place is incredible!!! So many details, so many buddhas, so many paintings, so many chapels, so much history and lots of stairs. At a point it got to be overwhelming. There have been 14 Dalai Lamas since 1391. That is a lot of history. The place is mystical with all the people who come here to pray and give blessings. This has been a highlight of the trip. It was an amazing morning at the Potala Palace and worth the walk up.

We left the palace around noon and went to a local restaurant for a nice meal. I tell you I really love yak meat. After a nice relaxing meal we all returned to the bus for our next excursion. We drove for about fifteen minutes and then the bus dropped us off and we walked for another ten minutes through a market area. We arrived at a nunnery (assuming this meant convent, but not sure) and found that it was closed. The nuns were taking examinations and they wouldn’t open until 5:00pm. The plans were changed and we continued our walk through the market area and arrived at The Temple of the South Three Protectors – a small monastery. We did a quick tour inside and then we walked around the market for a short period.

By 3:00pm we were back at the bus and we headed for the hotel. Once at the hotel Thomas and I got things packed for tomorrow. We have to have our checked luggage outside our room by 8:00am and we leave for the airport at 9:00am for our flight to Xi’an. After packing we read for a bit and I edited pictures. At 6:00pm we went down for dinner. It was a buffet and had a lot to choose from. They came around our tables and offered us turkey for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful gesture. Thomas and I weren’t all that hungry so we only ate a small meal and then returned to our room. We went through the closet and checked around to make sure we have everything. Looking forward to Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors.