Lhasa

Day 18

We all slept  poorly except for Zachary. I had a stuffed nose to contend with. Andrea has altitude sickness and suffered a splitting headache. When we repacked we put all the medicine in one of the kid's duffels and didn't want to wake them,  but eventually Andrea did.

The breakfast buffet was as dumpy as the rest of the hotel. There wasn't much and a lot of what there was was less appetizing than you'd expect. Even the raw cucumber, which I didn't think was something you could ruin, was in a really salty, slimy white sauce.

Our guide and driver meet us in the lobby at 9:30 to take us to Polata Castle. The castle was huge. Built on a hill overlooking the city it has 14 stories, though how they are counted is beyond me. We'd go up a flight of stairs and the guide would tell us we'd gone from 9 to 11. There are 999 room, of which we saw about 20. Each room was full of ornate statues of Budas and bodhisattvas, paintings, and sometimes scrolls or mandalas (elaborate golden 3D models). The palace was full of monks and locals worshiping. There was money everywhere, left as offerings, to the point where it overflowed donation containers, where they existed, but more often it just coated the floors.

We spent about 2 hours on the palace, including half an hour at the museum at the base, half an hour on the grounds and the climb up to the entrance of the palace itself, and one hour (timed, with a steep penalty for going over) in the palace, where your time inside is strictly limited because the weight of all the tourist was a problem for wooden floors that are centuries old.
Ari complained about the incense smoke. Zachary complained about a stomach ache. Joshua complained about his brothers complaints making the second half unenjoyable for him. Andrea complained about Joshua's lack of empathy. I was unhappy with the no photography policy. There are a lot of things that were inspiring and I'd love to be able to look at again but I resisted the urge to complain.

After the palace we ate lunch at a Tibetan restaurant that was delicious. The food was similar to Indian, Naan, chili yak, a coconut milk soup, butter chicken, some vegetarian noodle dish, and greens. Joshua had an apple lassi and Andrea and I got lemon ginger tea that was made from ginger pieces and lemon slices. While we ate the children read our blogs for the first time. They giggled at the horrible typos and autocorrect garbage in my posts. I'll edit them when I am back.

After lunch we went to visit Jokhan temple that was in many ways a smaller  version of  the palace: golden Budas and beautiful paintings, but this had a ornate gilded roof. Legend holds that it was built on a lake that was inhabited by a daemon who was defeated by having the temple built directly on his heart.

After the temple tour we spent an hour walking around old town, a collection of small shops that sold everything from Buddhist statues to food. Andrea bought a scarf. Then the driver took the kids back to the hotel while Andrea and I remained to walk some more.

When we were done shopping Andrea and I caught a cab to get back to the hotel. It took longer than anticipated. When we got into the cab there was a guy in the front passenger seat who I assumed was a friend or helper for the driver. He spoke English, told us what the fare would be, looked up the hotel on GPS. A few blocks after that he paid the driver and got out of the taxi. A few blocks after that a woman poked her head in the window while we were stuck in traffic, discussed something with our driver and got in. The driver started going in the wrong direction. Andrea showed him on the GPS and tried to explain to no avail. After a couple of attempts, the driver had an animated conversation with the passenger in the front seat, which I imagine went like this:
"These foreigners are getting agitated. Mind if I drop them off first even though it's out of the way? "
"That's nuts."
"Please, I'll give you a discount on your fare."
"OK, but make sure that you charge them enough to make up for the discount."

So, our 13 Yuan fare became 30, but we got home.

After several nights of bad sleep we took a nap. Getting up from that nap for dinner was the hardest thing I'd done in years. We went downstairs and tried to hail a cab. They ignored us and screamed by. Andrea went into the hotel for help. They couldn't call a cab. They sent somebody out to help. His luck was no better than ours but eventually a cab dropped off a couple at our hotel and we just piled in. The driver argued with the man from our hotel for a while but eventually took us.

We had dinner at the same Tibetan place we'd eaten at for lunch. It was once again excellent.

After dinner we went to a supermarket which was large, well lit, and had a variety of interesting things. The kids bought desserts while Andrea and I got fruit, milk, more tissues, and hair conditioner.
We got done with the supermarket and tried to hail a cab. As you might have guessed this one was no easier. We stood out on the street for 45 minutes until Joshua got so pissed at an empty cab that passed us that he ran after it until it hit a red light, told off the driver (in English) and held it until we caught up.

Exhausted though I was I had trouble falling asleep.