Day 8: Potala Palace & Johkang Temple

The final day at Lhasa is the main highlight of the 2 main heritage site of Tibet where it supposed to visit on the second day but we change schedule because to suit another group for the Everest trip. So we meet up at 9am and took a tricycle to the Potala Palace entrance where we start to witness the huge china crowd at Potala Palace as there are many local tourist group queue up at the entrance to wait to enter. This is the real queue in China where we did not experience at Everest and also other monastery outside of Lhasa. 1

Potala Palace is a real grand monastery of Tibet and it is an icon of Lhasa and Tibet. We slowly enter the palace from the ground and slowly climb up the palace through the stairs and slope. The maintenance of the palace is maintain using natural resources e.g. the entrance blanket are made of Yak hair and the paint is using other agriculture products, such as milk, sugar, rock sugar, honey, brown sugar and so on. In the deployment of coatings, the staff add mineral raw materials in proportion of red and yellow. At the same time, adding saffron can remove the smell, which is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures.Adding sugar is to make the coating more sticky, easier to attach, but not easy to fall off. This is what make Potala Palace a beautiful world heritage site that you must visit and witness yourself.

After Potala Palace we went back to the hotel for a rest and lunch before meeting up at 3pm to proceed visit of Johkang Temple. This is another interesting heritage site where there are active buddhsim pilgrimage at this temple. Locals walking round the temple where the statue of Jowo Sakyamuni, Tibet's most holy relic, resides. This is a pilgrimage every Tibetan Buddhist aspires to make. Interesting site to walk around round clockwise with the locals with surrounding of locals souvenir and café places near Johkang Temple.

-Next Day-