23 August, 1998 2:45PM

Visit to the Potala Palace this morning. Large crowds, poor crowd control. large libraries, chapels, Audience rooms with walls covered with murals. 5-year major restoration work done 1990-1995. Fee for picture-taking anywhere within the palace.

Palace dates from the 7th century, with Dalai Lama V, and was used continuously until Dalai Lama XIV left after the Chinese invaded in 1950. Very dark inside - murals obviously darkened by many years use of yak butter lamps for illumination. Current illumination is by sparsely scattered electric lights - mostly fluorescent. More care and energy seems to have gone into the complex system of infrared and video security systems.

Dalai Lama V thru XIII, with some exception (VII?), are interred within the palace in large gold jewel-encrusted tombs. The largest was said to contain 110,000 lbs of gold. One room alone contained about six of these. I wonder how the 1300 year old floor supports it!

Tibetan books consist of stacks of thin sheets, maybe 10cm by 50-60cm, loosely bound by tied cords through holes in one end. The libraries contained thousands of these scriptures, some wrapped in protective cloth, others stacked on open shelves. I saw no sign of any indexing scheme. I have heard that monasteries full of these were destroyed by the Chinese army. Even with what is left, it would be a massive effort to scan, duplicate, and index the remaining documents of this almost-lost culture.

The Potala is built on the top of a mountain in central Lhasa. The roads leading up to the gate were never designed for 40-passenger buses, so we were left off only a short way up, and we had the pleasure of walking. On the way up, I noticed a side path, leading to a seldom-used entrance. I looked back, and saw a group of us, waiting for others to catch up. Along the walls, I saw evidence of old carvings and painted decoration, or is this graffiti? Eventually, we made it to the main entrance, where we were warned not to take pictures inside. While waiting for permission to enter, I looked up to photograph the prayer flags flying from the roof, only to spot a curious monk looking down at the tourists below. Once inside, we walked through many dark hallways, libraries, audience rooms, and chapels before we got to the upper level courtyards and roof where pictures were permitted. I snapped this picture of John and Paula, only to find out later that somewhere in the Potala he had presented her with a diamond ring. Was this the moment? We dawdled in the courtyard for a bit, taking pictures of each other and enjoying the sunshine. I was also nursing a hand I had gashed on a sharp edge of a handrail, coming up one of the steep ladder-like stairs. There was a room built in the courtyard one level below us, and it's walls were decorated with hand-painted florals on every possible surface. Looking up, even the rooftops were embellished with ornaments. From a rooftop terrace, for which we had to pay a small additional sum to visit, we could get a good view of the city and surrounding countryside, and found plenty of opportunities to photograph our friends with dramatic backgrounds. I couldn't resist the temptation to record one small architectural detail. I couldn't help but notice one particularly nice house, built on the side of a hill across the way. I wonder who lives there? Gargoyles large and small were abundant. After this, I was told that I was falling behind the group, and I better move along, since we only had ten minutes to board the bus for lunch. I hurried to catch up, and found myself all the way back to the buses, having found no other members of our group, and only one person on the bus. Obviously, I had missed a turn somewhere.

It is so hard for me to decide what is Tibetan, and what is Chinese. The Chinese influence is everywhere. The dragon motif, and the doorway guard-lions appear everywhere, yet they seem strangely out-of-place here. This makes me think more about other examples of cultural infiltration/ How have we European suppressed the culture of the Native Americans, and of the many immigrant groups in our country? How does China's 'open immigration policy' in Tibet compare to our own 'Manifest Destiny', and the settling of the American west? Or, of Israel's continued development on the west bank? When will people learn to eliminate population growth, rather than constantly expanding into our neighbor's yards?

5:10 PM

A short adventure to the oldest, largest monastery in Tibet. To the Tibetans, it is this monastery, and not the Potala, that is the essence of Lhasa. Our buses are the most modern, largest busses they could find in Lhasa. But they are not well maintained. The combination of large, sealed windows with non-functional air conditioning makes for a sweltering hot-box in the sun. What little ventilation is available sucks in diesel fumes, and the fan is so far out of balance it rattles so that we can't hear the guide, even with the aid of a PA system. I'd rather be with the Tibetans, riding in the open back of a truck, with the breeze in my face.

As the bus stopped, and the temperature immediately soared,Nancy popped a blood vessel in her right nostril. We could not get it to stop, and with John's help, we found a Tibetan/Chinese clinic. The doctor there (a woman), packed her nostril with medicated gauze, and gave her some herbs to take for the next few days. Thor and I accompanied her to the monastery where we paid our respects and made an offering. With this little exertion, the packing was beginning to fall out, so we made a second stop at the clinic, where her nose was re-packed, this time with a beeswax-like ointment on the gauze. I then found a cab, and accompanied her back to the hotel, where she could rest.

Around 7PM, we set out again, for dinner and a show, we were told. As we drove through an older section of the city, a particular storefront caught my eye. No sooner did I take the picture, but the bus stopped, and we were told this was to be our dinner restaurant. Notice the sign. It is printed in three languages, with the Chinese being the largest, and the English and Tibetan about half-size. This is typical. If there is Tibetan at all on a storefront, it is usually about half the size of the Chinese. Inside, we found out that the restaurant had expected us an hour earlier, and there was another group now arriving, who expected to be fed first. Our guides waited patiently along with the rest of us. When finally we were served, we had a delicious buffet of some 28 courses. The specialty of the house was sauteed sheep lungs (dark meat, front bowl center), and it was excellent. The restaurant was crowded, but we made the best of it by helpingg each other stay cool and relaxed. As the only real Tibetan meal we had during our three-day stay in Lhasa, I believe it was enjoyed by all. After dinner, we were entertained by a pair of Tibetan singers, in quite colorful costumes. They were accompanied by two musicians, one playing a hammer dulcimer, and the other a stringed instrument. These women had a great deal of stamina, as they performed a twenty-minute routine three times, moving from room to room each time. We were enthralled, as we sat spellbound listening to the music.

Well, this was our last evening in Lhasa. We were to catch an early flight the next morning for Chengdu, so we went back to the hotel to pack and put out our bags. We were awakened early, and on the road well before dawn, so we got a chance to see the sunrise over the flooded river, and the early morning fog, still settled into the mountain valleys.