Adventure Vacation Trip

Day 10 – Around Lhasa – Norbulingka Palace & Sera Monastery

I woke up at 7am and yes, cold as usual.

Dawa did not turn up at our appointed time and when we called him, he told us he’s still stuck in a queue for some permits.  He advised us to visit Norbulingka Palace on our own and he would meet us after lunch to visit Sera Monastery.

So we flagged a taxi to Norbulingka at 10 RMB.

Norbulingka means Treasure Park and was the summer residence of the Dalai Lamas.  It was from the Norbulingka that the 14th Dalai Lama escaped to India on 17 March 1959.  From Wikipedia:

On this day, the Dalai Lama dressed like an ordinary Tibetan carrying a rifle across his shoulder left the Norbulinga palace and Tibet to seek asylum in India. As there was a dust storm blowing at that time he was not recognized. According to Reuters, “The Dalai Lama and his officials, who had also escaped from the palace, rode out of the city on horses to join his family for the trek to India”. The Chinese discovered this “great escape” only two days later. The party journeyed through the Himalayas for two weeks and finally crossed the Indian border where they received political asylum.

The small movie theatre which Heinrich Harrer built for the 14th Dalai Lama was also in Norbulingka.

These days, the Norbulingka is a tourist attraction and has undergone numerous renovation works by the Chinese government.

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Day 09 – Around Lhasa – Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Barkhor Street

I woke up in the middle of night shivering.  The portable heater had stopped running.  It was another power cut.  I disturbed the reception but unfortunately, the guy did not know where the master switch was and advised me to try to get some sleep and wait until the morning.  J and I tried the row of swiches along the stairs just below our floor but none worked.  So we resigned ourselves to our fate and put on extra layers of clothings.  But it’s still too cold for a good sleep.

The girls gave us a wake up call at 7am (one of them lost a game yesterday night).  I asked if they had any electricity trouble.  They gave the affirmative but added that they still managed to sleep through without any troubles.  How?  With the extra blankets found in the wardrobe, it’s almost too warm.  So they didn’t even bother to leave the room for the master switches found along the stairs just above our floor.

Gals 1, Guys 0.

We booked Kyichu Hotel because it’s a safe choice.  But what I really wanted to try were the charming and atmospheric boutique hotels which were converted from traditional and historical Tibetan courtyard homes.  The power problem gave us a good excuse.

So we went hotel hunting at 8am.  There was only one moon in the sky.

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Day 08 – Train Journey & Arrival at Lhasa

Woke up early but there’s no glorious sunrise as it’s very cloudy.

For breakfast, we had some of the confectionary from Chengdu.  But as we wanted something hot, we visited the restaurant and ordered 1 set meal to share.

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Day 07 – Train Journey to Lhasa

“Did I snore?” I asked my friends.  They heard some snoring.  But they were quick to add that it wasn’t too loud.  Now, that made me really wondered how exactly loud I was.  One of these days I got to use a tape recorder.  I knew I sometimes snore when I was too tired.  An instructor once commented that a section mate and I played the fifth symphony throughout the night in the deep jungles of Brunei and he couldn’t get a wink of sleep.

Well, I hereby declare my deepest regrets to all the sleeps I have disturbed.

Not sure if this small boy with a sleepy look was one of my victims, I apologise to you anyway.

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Day 06 – Qingchengshan and 44hrs Train Ride to Lhasa

For my friends’ entire stay in China, today was the only day where we had a self-organised trip.   The Tibetan tour, Sichuan Opera, Panda Conservatory and even the train and bus tickets were arranged by Sim’s Cozy.  Even though I usually avoided organised tours, I felt it’s a better choice when you have a group of people traveling together.  By joining an organised tour, the whole group can relax and need not worry about logistic details.  People have different preferences and not everyone thinks that finding one’s way around is fun.  If anything does go wrong with the organised tour, instead of blaming (silently or not) each other for poor organisation, the group can just place the responsibility on the tour agent and probably laughed it off as bad luck.  I think it makes for a happier travel group.

So why did I decide to visit Qingchengshan on our own instead of arranging one from Sim’s Cozy?  Well, I researched and found that visiting Qingchengshan is pretty straightforward.  I also thought my friends would find it fun.  There were a few other reasons for choosing Qingchengshan.  Even though I have used the term friends to describe our relationship, we didn’t really know each other well.  One can say that it was a travel group formed simply because the stars were aligned.  A self-organised trip to climb a physically demanding mountain with various uncertainties look like a good ice-breaking activity, a way to know each other better.  Oh, I also thought that it’s good exercise to prepare us for the higher altitudes.  We have a long train journey to ride out any sole muscles.  Okay, maybe I just want to find reasons for my hobby of mountain peaks collection.

So in the morning 650am, we boarded bus 27 to the train station.  Actually a staff at Sim’s Cozy told me to take another bus number but at the bus stop, I saw that bus 27 seemed to be going to the train station as well.  Since bus 27 arrived first, I told my friends that it’s the bus.  If it’s the wrong bus and we missed our train.. well, it turned out right and we reached the train station early.

At the train station, I distributed our train tickets.  These train tickets had our passport numbers on them.  After passing through the ticket checking and luggage scanners to the body frisking area, a great thing happened.  CC lost her train ticket.  She checked her pockets and bags but couldn’t find it.  There was a mass of bodies at the ticket checking and luggage scanners.  We weren’t sure if the ticket had dropped there.  Since the ticket was only 15RMB, we decided to just buy another ticket.  We headed to the ticketing office which was another building away and joined the long queues.  Time was tight but if necessary, we did not mind buying fresh tickets at a later timing for all four of us.  But China train system had some other ideas.  We cannot purchase another ticket in the same day for the same direction under the same passport.  We cannot request for a reissue of the ticket.  We cannot purchase a ticket less than 30 minutes before departure.  It’s all very complicated.  CC was very apologetic and asked us to go ahead without her.  Of course, we wouldn’t hear of it.  I really thought it’s fun to have such disruptions.  That’s why I said it’s a great thing to happen.

There were probably other ways to settle the problem but we decided to take the long distance bus from Xinnanmen station to Qingchengshan instead.  We didn’t know the bus schedule but we did know it will double the journey time.   Finding a cab that’s willing to go on the meter proved to be our next problem.  We tried 5 cabs before succeeding.   At Xinnanmen, we managed to purchase 4 tickets for the 915am bus to Qingchengshan.  See, things turned out okay even if we were slightly delayed.  Because of it, we even have time for some breakfast.  CC gave us a treat.

In the bus, a lady offered us a bypass route up Qingchengshan without the need to purchase the 90RMB entrance tickets.  She would charge us a small fee.  I have seen this happening in quite a few tourist spots around China.  I took up such offers when I was a poor student and it always turned out fine.  But we weren’t doing it today.

We reached Qingchengshan at around 11am. Qingchengshan is a Taoist mountain while the houshan (back mountain) is a Buddhist mountain.  I thought that’s pretty interesting.

I used to aspire climbing all the five great Taoist mountains (五岳) and the four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism (四大佛教名山).  But so far, I have only visited Tai Shan, Hua Shan, Heng Shan (Beiyue) and Emei Shan.

Taken from Wikipedia:

1 The Five Great Mountains

    1.1 East Great Mountain (Dōngyuè): Tài Shān
    1.2 West Great Mountain (Xīyuè): Huà Shān
    1.3 South Great Mountain (Nányuè): Héng Shān (Hunan)
    1.4 North Great Mountain (Běiyuè): Héng Shān
    1.5 Center Great Mountain (Zhōngyuè): Sōng Shān

2 The Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism

    2.1 Wǔtái Shān
    2.2 Éméi Shān
    2.3 Jiǔhuá Shān
    2.4 Pǔtuó Shān

Qingchengshan is also listed under another set of 4 Taoist Mountains.  So, another mountain off my list.

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