Day 39 Lhasa to Shigatse

Day 39                        Monday 3^rd October 2011       Lhasa to Shigatse

                

The 18 seater bus arrived and we set off with the yellow Porsche.

Quite good roads out of Lhasa with very little traffic. Once we got out into the country the roads were lined with poplar trees, just turning golden so it was a very pretty landscape. Snow covered mountains could be seen for a lot of this journey.

In some of the villages we noticed slabs of slate for sale & wondered where it came from. We soon found out. Huge mountains of shiny slate, mostly untouched.

All along the road, farmers were busy harvesting hay & straw. In the villages, the yards in front of the houses were full of hay & straw. Not sure whether these would then be for sale or for their own use. Whole families were involved in bundling, stacking & storing.

Many of the houses had hay & straw on the roof and many looked like they had straw fringes as a result. Many houses also had cow pats drying in the sun, either in heaps or stuck to the walls. These would then be used for burning. We saw a few herds of yak. The Brahmaputra river runs along this route on its way to India, very wide in some places.

Taking Tea

Along this stretch of road there are numerous police checks for speed. What happens is that you get a docket showing the time of day & how long to get to the next checkpoint & how long that should take. Drivers simply go at their own pace and as they approach the next checkpoint they pull over if they are ahead of time. Our guide told us that the penalties range from 500 yuan to 2,000 yuan.

Each village along this stretch has police statues, some holding radar guns.

Police statue

We stopped in a village for some tea. Tea leaves are placed in each cup & hot water poured in. Along the way we noticed many houses & shops had 2 large aluminium discs out the front or on the rooftop & a kettle perched between. Apparently water boils at lower temperatures at this altitude.

The restrooms across the road from the tea house left a lot to be desired… concrete pits with ply stalls about waist height & the stench was dreadful. This is yet another wonder about China. We see health inspection 4wd’s driving about yet the toilets, even at the military & police checkpoints are absolutely filthy.

The road deteriorated & it seems the road structure over the regular culverts were all breaking up due to poor construction. We read in the paper that one road (can’t remember which province) spent almost $2 billion on a road which lasted 80 days. This was put down to poor construction, poor materials, & bad weather.

On arriving in Shigatse, the main road was also breaking up & repairs have been going on for months. Cars criss-crossed & up onto the footpath to get around the roadworks.

After checking into the hotel we took a taxi to the Tashilhumpo Monastery, another huge temple complex founded in 1400’s & the largest functioning monastery in Tibet. This was a fascinating place. It had been taken over by the PRC in 1991 & apparently one of the few monasteries to survive the Cultural Revolution unscathed. The complex is about 70,000 sq metres & almost a walled town with cobbled lanes & aging buildings. Some of the buildings are ochre coloured, a great contrast to the rest which are white. The ones topped with gold hold the tombs of the Panchen Lamas.

 

Tashilhumpo Monastery

For dinner we went down the street to a muslim restaurant which had photographs of all its dishes on the wall…nothing in English so it was point to order. Chris was taken by the photograph which he was sure was duck. It turned out to be lamb but a good meal overall.

Now on the regular route from Lhasa to Kathmandu, so plenty of travellers, Chinese and westerners, going in both directions.