Doug and Pat Donaldson spent three weeks traveling the Tibet-Sichuan highway in accommodations that rarely had heat and sometimes had no running water, at altitudes between 10,000 and 17,000 feet. Along the road they saw pilgrims prostrating themselves on their way to the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, which for many Tibetans is the most holy temple. The tourists in their group would signal to the jeep or bus driver each time there was especially breathtaking landscape that they wanted to photograph and the driver would try to pull over.
Pat said, “Everywhere you look there were thousands of colorful prayer flags, at holy places, on hillsides, on mountain passes, and piles of mani stones with the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM carved on them. Tibetans were spinning their prayer wheels, and repeating mantras on their rosary beads.”
Among the many tourist attractions they visited, Pat and Doug went to the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lamas, until the present Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India.
http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/tibet/potala_palace.html
Pat described the tomb of the 13th Dalai Lama, which was 16 feet high, made of gold, encrusted with gems and 200,000 pearls. Doug and Pat bought a book from the palace and noted that it contained no pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama. It was prohibited to talk about him.
Pat contrasted the beauty and spirituality with unsettling images of armed police on the corners, clusters of soldiers at gas stations, and security cameras everywhere. They also visited the Samye monastery, the site of an uprising of monks in 2008.
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