Before than I go to Tibet I landed in Chengdu .This is a very quiet city and not developed so fast .Cost of living there is pretty cheap compare to East cities.
As Giant Pandas are in danger and under the protection.
There is a green national park theme which has a breeding panda center as well as having a big park as Pandas home to take care of Pandas.
That place is 130 km far from Chengdu city and daily they have tour bus to take the tourists there and it is a half day tour include visiting Panda breeding center and strolling in the park and taking photos with pandas .There are 2 type of Pandas there .One Big Giant Panda which cost almost 500 Kuai for one photo and small ones which are much cheaper.
I visited that place before than earthquake 2008 in Sichuan province ,but after that a lot of them became homeless and they moved them to Beijing and made another New place for them in Chengdu city.
There is another place which is great to visit is the Dufu’s cottage which is basically house of one o the famous poets in Sichuan province. Which is located in the South part of the city centre and in fact the atmosphere inspiring the visitors that they are in a poet’s house as the whole path till hallway are full of bamboos lining the sidewalk and give a perfect shade and warm welcoming to the visitors. When you arrive there the building has zigzag corridors and the whole path through is full of Flowers’s pots.
As China is famous for its Operas .in the East costal cities you can see Shaoxing opera and Beijing Opera ,but when you go to the West the most famous Opera there is Sichuan opera or face changing and fire blowing.
In fact this Opera is pretty colorful and amazing as you see the actor and actresses change their mask unbelievably fast which no one can get how they put a new mask on their face. They do t at least 10 times faster than normal movements and our eyes make makes of recognizing the right moment of changing mask .This Opera as other Operas in China come up with legendary stories .There are more than 10 different masks with different appearance which hooked on the face. Each of painting and color on the mask represent special them , story and character in fact.
In fact this Opera has performance few times per week and the ticket is quite reasonable and you can get it from travel agencies who have advertisement about it. Show starts in the evening and it takes approximately 2 hours and include free tea ceremony which shows the traditional way of serving and pouring Tea, Moreover in that area there are plenty of crap, cheap handy craft shops which you can find something as mostly ,puppets, shadow faces dolls ,masks and other wooden crafts.
Jilin street is another common meeting point for tourist and visitors to buy their souvenirs there. That street has pretty much all you need form West part of China as Embroideries, wooden tools, handy crafts ,paper –cutting and Chinese painting and puppets, and masks. When you are strolling Down the street you will feel the quiet ambience which is mixed with snack ‘s aroma.
I had a perfect break time to pack my bulging bag pack and move on to Tibet for a month.
In fact for all foreigners is required to have a permission to enter the Tibetan border, which is easy to get. I could find a travel agency trogh Web site and ask for help.
In fact they need copy of passport and resident permit in China and the rest leave it to them ,just give them some money, but the fact s most of them ask you to buy the plane ticket and sometimes if it s not high peak you can get train ticket. There is a fast train which take 3 days from Shanghai to Lhasa, but for I loved to be in Sichuan for a while and then more there. I flew there.
Before going there is better consider your health condition as it is almost 3500 altitude in lowest place around Lhasa and mostly higher than that in other places and districts and even if you go to South towards Himalaya it get worse.
Anyhow, back to my adventure I must admit t was pretty harsh and annoying to get all these stuff done ,but the trip was great in fact.
For record I should say Tibet is autonomous region in China and in fact you have heard a lot about the riot there during 2008 till now and Dalai lama their religious leader, but in fact I was quite lucky to be there, it is happened to be there before all these fuss.
In fact Tibatian people are very religious and mostly Buddhist, there are pretty much Muslim live there from 19-20 century. Most of these people moved from India ,Cashmere and Turkish
countries.
As you can presume culture , food and tradition is a combination of all these neighboring countries and their language is totally different from Chinese.
I did like Tibatian, beside having great time with perfect shiny bright -dry days and chili mornings and heavy rains from midnight and nice, tranquil places where I went ,people were poor but so friendly and warm hearted.
People in Tibet have their own cuisines ,in fact butter milk and cheese from Yak ,mutton and Yak, cow, meat is pretty famous .Every day they use pretty much fresh ,smelly Cheese with Milk comes from Buffalo, ( Tibetan cows).
A lot of restaurants have great service for Indian, Nepalese food, which is spicy, but different spice from Sichuan in fact.
They have different festivals in Tibet in fact as I arrived there in middle summer (August) they told me one of the festival in washing Potal palaces which they do every year and that palaces has a great history and magnificent for Tibetan (I will be back to that later on) and another festival is Yogurt festival which might bring this illusion in our mind, what’s the point and why Yogurt is so important but infect as we don't have there we can't feel how life can be difficult.
Mostly Tibetan people economy is depending on breeding livestock as sheep, cows, yak and horses.
Lhasa the capital is known as "Light city" as Tibet is known as a dark, grey sky land with rainstorms and plateau snow.
In fact in Lhasa you will see different life style and even streets are affected by modern civilization and traditional one. If you stay in Lhasa for a while which is pretty wise to stay far a while in matter of getting used to high altitude you shouldn't miss visiting monasteries and temples The best well-known one is Potal palace and The three main monasteries in Lhasa are also not to be missed.
They are Sera Monastery, Garden Monastery and Draping Monastery.
In fact Johang temple is in walking street which is called Barkhor street in Lhasa, which provides variety of handy crafts, souvenir shops and plenty of restaurants with different cuisines. Locals are pretty proud of this street as it is very old and symbol of Tibetan traditions
In Lhasa as the matter of fact ,if you want to get into temples ,need to be very precise with timing ,cause a lot of days and lunch break is for monks to pray and temples are closed to public.
You see a lot of tourists coming and going tin that street from dusk to dawn and even though pilgrims pass by due to being surrounded in The West part by Johang Temple.
You need to be very careful about prices when you pass by vendor and good a t bargaining as a tourist you might receive a very high price first.
Johang temple was build in Tang dynasty and has Tang dynasty ,Nepalese and Tibetan cultural heritage. In fact in that period one of the kings married to Nepalese princess and they brought 2 statue as symbol with themselves. This temple has a 4- storey timber and on the top is golden.
In fact you will the pilgrimage and monks have a totally different way of raying form the other part of China ,at least. They mostly pray on the bare floor and bow and bend completely and fall into the floor and do it a hundreds times, and even I have seen some of them walk all the way from far distance into Lhasa with bare foot and all the way ray and people and passengers give them some food till they arrive to their Holy place Lhasa city.
Potala palace is one of fascinating palaces to visit though. In fact I just visited outside case getting the tickets means you have to stand in line for few hours and be there at least day ahead and even sometimes in peak tourists’ season you might need to be there before 4 a.m.. In fact the regulations of selling ticket has changed and nowadays individual tourists are able to buy their tickets and no need to book it in advanced.
Potala palace has 7 stores and when the 5 and 6 Dalai lama died there they chanced the color of 6 floor as he used to rule and lived there and painted in Red which is the symbol of prosperity and power and good luck.
Almost every season they repaint the whole Palace wall n white as it is the symbol of purity and peace. This palace was very important in so many decades for Tibetan as it was the center of politics and religion there.
In Barkor Street you can find so many travel agencies which locally help you to find other tourists ( if you are travelling alone) and get at least 4 people then you can hire a jeep and go to the South or West( if you want to see the Himalaya and other mountains in South Border of Nepal and travel to Nepal)
After I stayed few days in Lhasa and did some shopping and visiting palaces and monasteries’ wanted to see Namdoc Lake and another lake which are around Lhasa and not too far so I have got my bus ticket and tour in that street .But you should be ready for all these activities in the early morning .
There is just one travel agency and actually sport shop which has climbing equipments which provide one day tour for Back horse riding and White water rafting.
It doesn’t cost too much and you can have all the equipments plus tour guide and food .
I had a great experience of horse riding for 6 hours there and the point is you mixed with locals and see the grass land and river bank as well.
If you want to see Namdoc lake which is the highest lake in the world 4700 meter above the sea .It is better you just have a day tour .there are few hostels( camp) you can stay over night ,but need to be careful of your health as it gets dark much harder to breathe.
This is lake is not just ne of the highest ,but one of the 3 holy lake in Lhasa.
It is covered by snow and ice most of the year.
.
As Giant Pandas are in danger and under the protection.
There is a green national park theme which has a breeding panda center as well as having a big park as Pandas home to take care of Pandas.
That place is 130 km far from Chengdu city and daily they have tour bus to take the tourists there and it is a half day tour include visiting Panda breeding center and strolling in the park and taking photos with pandas .There are 2 type of Pandas there .One Big Giant Panda which cost almost 500 Kuai for one photo and small ones which are much cheaper.
I visited that place before than earthquake 2008 in Sichuan province ,but after that a lot of them became homeless and they moved them to Beijing and made another New place for them in Chengdu city.
There is another place which is great to visit is the Dufu’s cottage which is basically house of one o the famous poets in Sichuan province. Which is located in the South part of the city centre and in fact the atmosphere inspiring the visitors that they are in a poet’s house as the whole path till hallway are full of bamboos lining the sidewalk and give a perfect shade and warm welcoming to the visitors. When you arrive there the building has zigzag corridors and the whole path through is full of Flowers’s pots.
As China is famous for its Operas .in the East costal cities you can see Shaoxing opera and Beijing Opera ,but when you go to the West the most famous Opera there is Sichuan opera or face changing and fire blowing.
In fact this Opera is pretty colorful and amazing as you see the actor and actresses change their mask unbelievably fast which no one can get how they put a new mask on their face. They do t at least 10 times faster than normal movements and our eyes make makes of recognizing the right moment of changing mask .This Opera as other Operas in China come up with legendary stories .There are more than 10 different masks with different appearance which hooked on the face. Each of painting and color on the mask represent special them , story and character in fact.
In fact this Opera has performance few times per week and the ticket is quite reasonable and you can get it from travel agencies who have advertisement about it. Show starts in the evening and it takes approximately 2 hours and include free tea ceremony which shows the traditional way of serving and pouring Tea, Moreover in that area there are plenty of crap, cheap handy craft shops which you can find something as mostly ,puppets, shadow faces dolls ,masks and other wooden crafts.
Jilin street is another common meeting point for tourist and visitors to buy their souvenirs there. That street has pretty much all you need form West part of China as Embroideries, wooden tools, handy crafts ,paper –cutting and Chinese painting and puppets, and masks. When you are strolling Down the street you will feel the quiet ambience which is mixed with snack ‘s aroma.
I had a perfect break time to pack my bulging bag pack and move on to Tibet for a month.
In fact for all foreigners is required to have a permission to enter the Tibetan border, which is easy to get. I could find a travel agency trogh Web site and ask for help.
In fact they need copy of passport and resident permit in China and the rest leave it to them ,just give them some money, but the fact s most of them ask you to buy the plane ticket and sometimes if it s not high peak you can get train ticket. There is a fast train which take 3 days from Shanghai to Lhasa, but for I loved to be in Sichuan for a while and then more there. I flew there.
Before going there is better consider your health condition as it is almost 3500 altitude in lowest place around Lhasa and mostly higher than that in other places and districts and even if you go to South towards Himalaya it get worse.
Anyhow, back to my adventure I must admit t was pretty harsh and annoying to get all these stuff done ,but the trip was great in fact.
For record I should say Tibet is autonomous region in China and in fact you have heard a lot about the riot there during 2008 till now and Dalai lama their religious leader, but in fact I was quite lucky to be there, it is happened to be there before all these fuss.
In fact Tibatian people are very religious and mostly Buddhist, there are pretty much Muslim live there from 19-20 century. Most of these people moved from India ,Cashmere and Turkish
countries.As you can presume culture , food and tradition is a combination of all these neighboring countries and their language is totally different from Chinese.
I did like Tibatian, beside having great time with perfect shiny bright -dry days and chili mornings and heavy rains from midnight and nice, tranquil places where I went ,people were poor but so friendly and warm hearted.
People in Tibet have their own cuisines ,in fact butter milk and cheese from Yak ,mutton and Yak, cow, meat is pretty famous .Every day they use pretty much fresh ,smelly Cheese with Milk comes from Buffalo, ( Tibetan cows).
A lot of restaurants have great service for Indian, Nepalese food, which is spicy, but different spice from Sichuan in fact.
They have different festivals in Tibet in fact as I arrived there in middle summer (August) they told me one of the festival in washing Potal palaces which they do every year and that palaces has a great history and magnificent for Tibetan (I will be back to that later on) and another festival is Yogurt festival which might bring this illusion in our mind, what’s the point and why Yogurt is so important but infect as we don't have there we can't feel how life can be difficult.
Mostly Tibetan people economy is depending on breeding livestock as sheep, cows, yak and horses.
Lhasa the capital is known as "Light city" as Tibet is known as a dark, grey sky land with rainstorms and plateau snow.
In fact in Lhasa you will see different life style and even streets are affected by modern civilization and traditional one. If you stay in Lhasa for a while which is pretty wise to stay far a while in matter of getting used to high altitude you shouldn't miss visiting monasteries and temples The best well-known one is Potal palace and The three main monasteries in Lhasa are also not to be missed.
They are Sera Monastery, Garden Monastery and Draping Monastery.
In fact Johang temple is in walking street which is called Barkhor street in Lhasa, which provides variety of handy crafts, souvenir shops and plenty of restaurants with different cuisines. Locals are pretty proud of this street as it is very old and symbol of Tibetan traditions
In Lhasa as the matter of fact ,if you want to get into temples ,need to be very precise with timing ,cause a lot of days and lunch break is for monks to pray and temples are closed to public.
You see a lot of tourists coming and going tin that street from dusk to dawn and even though pilgrims pass by due to being surrounded in The West part by Johang Temple.
You need to be very careful about prices when you pass by vendor and good a t bargaining as a tourist you might receive a very high price first.
Johang temple was build in Tang dynasty and has Tang dynasty ,Nepalese and Tibetan cultural heritage. In fact in that period one of the kings married to Nepalese princess and they brought 2 statue as symbol with themselves. This temple has a 4- storey timber and on the top is golden.
In fact you will the pilgrimage and monks have a totally different way of raying form the other part of China ,at least. They mostly pray on the bare floor and bow and bend completely and fall into the floor and do it a hundreds times, and even I have seen some of them walk all the way from far distance into Lhasa with bare foot and all the way ray and people and passengers give them some food till they arrive to their Holy place Lhasa city.
Potala palace is one of fascinating palaces to visit though. In fact I just visited outside case getting the tickets means you have to stand in line for few hours and be there at least day ahead and even sometimes in peak tourists’ season you might need to be there before 4 a.m.. In fact the regulations of selling ticket has changed and nowadays individual tourists are able to buy their tickets and no need to book it in advanced.
Potala palace has 7 stores and when the 5 and 6 Dalai lama died there they chanced the color of 6 floor as he used to rule and lived there and painted in Red which is the symbol of prosperity and power and good luck.
Almost every season they repaint the whole Palace wall n white as it is the symbol of purity and peace. This palace was very important in so many decades for Tibetan as it was the center of politics and religion there.
In Barkor Street you can find so many travel agencies which locally help you to find other tourists ( if you are travelling alone) and get at least 4 people then you can hire a jeep and go to the South or West( if you want to see the Himalaya and other mountains in South Border of Nepal and travel to Nepal)
After I stayed few days in Lhasa and did some shopping and visiting palaces and monasteries’ wanted to see Namdoc Lake and another lake which are around Lhasa and not too far so I have got my bus ticket and tour in that street .But you should be ready for all these activities in the early morning .
There is just one travel agency and actually sport shop which has climbing equipments which provide one day tour for Back horse riding and White water rafting.
It doesn’t cost too much and you can have all the equipments plus tour guide and food .
I had a great experience of horse riding for 6 hours there and the point is you mixed with locals and see the grass land and river bank as well.
If you want to see Namdoc lake which is the highest lake in the world 4700 meter above the sea .It is better you just have a day tour .there are few hostels( camp) you can stay over night ,but need to be careful of your health as it gets dark much harder to breathe.
This is lake is not just ne of the highest ,but one of the 3 holy lake in Lhasa.
It is covered by snow and ice most of the year.
.
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