Tibet! Three days in Lhasa

I'm a little behind on my posts, mostly because I've been really busy, but the internet access has been pretty sketchy a lot of the time too.  So...here's my attempt to get caught up on where I've been over the last 3 weeks!  This will be spread over several posts, even though I'm writing them on the same day, because it's a little easier for me to do it that way with all of the pictures.

I spent almost two weeks in Tibet.  I flew into Lhasa from Chengdu and hit the ground running.  Lhasa's elevation is almost 12,000 feet and the rest of Tibet is all higher than that, so I had to take things a little slow sometimes.

My hotel in Lhasa is the building in the middle of the photo.

A typical restaurant.  It's not uncommon to sit at a table with other people (though this restaurant was nearly empty every time I went there).

Some views of the Barkhor kora (a kora is a sacred loop around a sacred place, as I understand it) around the Jokhang Temple.

I also took a video of a particularly devout Buddhist going around the kora. It took him a long time to complete the loop!  http://youtu.be/nZ6mqMK9Gmo

The Potala Palace in Lhasa, where the Dalai Lama should be living if he weren't living in exile in India....  There is a kora around this building as well, with lots of pilgrims going around it, especially in the morning.

You have to climb up tons of steps to get to the entrance.

The view is pretty nice though!

A couple of photos of the entrance to the building. There were tons of people, so it was impossible to take photos without random strangers in them....  Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside the building, so I don't have much beyond these few pictures.  That was true for almost every temple and monastery I visited.  Sometimes if you paid a bunch of money you could take photos, but otherwise you were only allowed pictures on the outside, or in a courtyard.

A cool panorama of Lhasa from the palace.

Next up was Sera Monastery, only a short bus ride away.

We were there in the afternoon, when the monks have debates that are in a courtyard where you can watch.  While I didn't understand any of the language, it was fun to watch them.  They seem to enjoy it too.

I also visited Drepung Monastery.  

Time for something to eat!  Some ginger lemon tea and cheese momos were my favorites.

Time to go back to the Barkhor and actually go inside the Jokhang Temple.  This time it was sunny instead of raining.  

A lot of the walls are actually made of sticks covered with a type of stucco.