Today we visited the beautiful Potala Palace, traditional winter home of the Dalai Lama.

Of course he is in exile in India so the palace remains mostly empty. After a fairly strenuous climb up the Red Hill and it’s many steps, one reaches the palace proper.


It is divided into two parts, the white palace, which is mostly comprised of the living spaces of the Dalai Lama and the other monks that once inhabited the palace. The second part is the red palace, which houses mostly religious artifacts. There are literally thousands of statues of Buddha and other deities. Some very, very small and the largest is probably about 10 metres high. Some of the more beautiful rooms house the tombs of the past Dalai Lamas, they are covered in gold and encrusted in jewels. The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, at the time, named Zhou Enlai had his guards protect the Potala Palace during the Chinese cultural revolution so all of the beautiful artifacts were saved from destruction. Also interesting were the many, many volumes of scriptures written by the past Dalai Lamas; all housed in little niches in the walls, from floor to ceiling in the large rooms. There are many Buddhist pilgrims walking throughout the palace, leaving offerings of food or money at the various statues and adding melted butter from their thermos’ to the butter lamps. These lamps are very large clay pots, the size of a witch’s cauldron, filled with yak butter and maybe 12 or so wicks. Mixed with the incense which is lit all around, they have a peculiar but not distasteful smell.



After lunch we went to the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred temple and spiritual centre of Tibet­.

Today is a special religious day, Palden Lhamo, named after the protective deity of this temple. Needless to say it was packed. Fortunately the Buddhist pilgrims form a line on the left and the tourists may pass on the right, otherwise it would have taken hours to get through. There is a central assembly hall where the monks gather each morning and night. Surrounding this are many small ‘chapels’ or rooms that have different statues within. The special thing about this temple is that it holds the Jowo Shakyamuni Buddha statue, perhaps the single most venerated object in Tibetan Buddhism. We only got a brief glimpse of the statue because it was so busy. The rooftop of the temple afforded us great views of the Barkhor square below and the palace beyond. Emily especially loved the decorative golden parts of the roof. She commented that she wished she had lots of golden toys to play with. Wouldn’t we all?

We settled into our gorgeous hotel in Lhasa and headed out for some dinner. We went to the highly recommended Snowland Restaurant which serves up some really good Tibetan and Indian food.

We tried yak dumplings (very yummy), lamb stew and some delicious garlic naan bread. We were early to bed to aid our acclimatization.

Our next adventure was a 46 hour train ride from Chengdu to Lhasa, Tibet. We travelled in relative comfort, in a self-contained cabin with 4 beds. They are called the ‘soft sleepers’ but soft is NOT how I would describe the beds. The train ran along the recently completed world’s highest railway line, at a cost of 4.1 billion USD. The Chinese government certainly has some cash to spend. During the last 24 hours the train elevation averaged about 3800m, topping out at 5070m. During this section the train has supplemental oxygen piped into the cars, but not enough to prevent the usual headache. There were several interesting travellers in our train car, and we spent some time chatting with them in the dining car. We were the only foreigners who had any sort of ability to speak Chinese, so we were asked to help with meal ordering by many of the others. Amazing how even a 30-50-word vocabulary can be immensely valuable.

The landscape that we passed through was breathtaking. It began as desert-like peaks, similar to Kamloops, BC but larger, then we climbed up to the wide-open plateau with short grasses and turquoise lakes.


Climbing even higher brought us through a rugged, forbidding landscape; high winds, ever-present snow and little vegetation. Throughout the train ride were tiny settlements, where people eke out a living with their cattle, yaks and sheep.

Descending down towards Lhasa we arrived back in the treeline. The settlements turned into small villages and agriculture supplemented the livestock.

Arriving in Lhasa, we were warmly greeted by our Tibetan guide, Pema, and our driver, Loksam and our shiny new Mercedes van. Looks like our overland tour is going to be pretty comfy!

The big day that the girls have been eagerly awaiting for 6 months since we first mentioned the idea of a trip to China has arrived! A visit to the panda bears!


The panda sanctuary is a great facility, very large with beautiful gardens and ‘tunnels’ of overhanging bamboo over the trails. There are many outdoor enclosures for the pandas but they have wooden ‘decks’ where they are fed so they are quite close to the spectators. They put on a great show. Eating about 40kg of bamboo a day, they munch away happily, first stripping off the outer bark then chomping away on the yummy insides, section by section. They like to lounge around on their back while doing this or rolling from side to side. They spend the rest of the day sleeping.



They are soooo fuzzy you just want to reach out and squeeze them.
We went to the ‘panda nursery’ where we saw 7 babies that were about 3 months old. Very, very cute, sorry, no photos allowed there. Then our timing was perfect and the girls were allowed to sit with a young panda, about 14 months old. They had to wear gloves and coverings over their shoes, to protect the panda, but Maddie gave him some rubs on the shoulders.

Emily was a little scared off because he scratched her as he reached over to the trainers for more bamboo. She got right back in there like a trooper for some more photos though. The ‘donation’ we were obliged to give of 1000 yuan for the chance to sit with the young panda goes back to the facility and the research centre, so we didn’t mind too much.

We had a leisurely lunch, then went to see the red pandas, which look like a cross between a fluffy cat and a raccoon. Very cute but the giant pandas are definitely the main attraction.


What a great place this is to help keep one of the most adorable species on earth alive and well.

Ok, we did it. We went to Chengdu’s brand new Polar Ocean World. It was pretty fun. We saw seals, walrus’, many kinds of dolphins, beluga whales, polar bears, penguins, sharks, sea turtles and various tropical fish.

We watched a seal show and a dolphin show. The girls liked it best when the dolphins jumped up and hit the balls suspended in the ceiling.

A fun day had by all. Now to find some ‘Thanksgiving’ dinner…

Our first big train ride was a success. David spoiled us rotten and brought us a brand new iPad. The girls have been iPad junkies ever since, it is great for the train.

We got the whole soft sleeper cabin together. The girls slept together on a top bunk and we occupied the other three bunks. I was awakened 4 times by the ipad and various items falling off the table onto my head, otherwise it was a good sleep. We are now in Chengdu, at a gorgeous hotel called the Buddha Zen, they even upgraded us to a suite.

We are comfy and ready for the next adventures that await us…

For the last two weeks it has been solid rain here, and not very warm either. We’ve been holed up in our room or at the shopping mall playground, not much for excitement otherwise. So today it warmed up and the sun kind of peeked out from behind the clouds for a little while. We decided to go out and embrace the environs. In plain talk, we let the girls run around in the mud puddles.


Of course this was great fun for them and we had a few giggles ourselves. You can judge for yourself here:
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We’ve had a busy week or two planning for our big upcoming trip. We are taking 3 weeks ‘off’ of my treatment here to journey westwards.
Our first stop will be Chengdu in the Sichuan province. We promised the girls, waaaay back when we were at home, that we would take them to see the Giant Pandas. Not only see them but you can hold one as well at this place. You can imagine how excited the girls are about this, and it has been fodder for some good ‘motivation’ to be good girls.

Here is the website for this panda breeding sanctuary, who’s goal is to increase the numbers of Giant Pandas:
http://www.panda.org.cn/english/
We will also have another day in Chengdu so we may visit the newly opened Polar Ocean World. It seems a bit crazy to open a ‘polar’ ocean world in the middle of a semi-tropical area, but the Chinese have spent 2 billion yuan (2.8 million dollars) in building this place. They have installed man-made snow and ice making as well as man-made salt water so that the polar bears, penguins, beluga whales, seals and walrus’ are comfortable in their ‘environment’. I am at odds for supporting this absolutely non-sustainable venture, but the kids would absolutely love it! Oh the dilemma!

It is 3:20am and I am awake. What better time than to add a few photos that have accumulated that are notable.
On one of our Sunday outings, the girls got to go for a horse ride:

These ‘stone bridges’ are very popular, found everywhere.

It is fall and the rice has been harvested:

Here it is drying:

Here’s the kids playing in the rice, just like a sandbox:

The rural Chinese have a tough life:

We are living in the ‘newest’ city in China, Zhongfang. There is promise of greatness, similar to our subdivisions:

The reality:

And finally, we’ve decided to ditch the training wheels, Emily is a biker!!

She loves her bike gloves ‘just like mom’. A lifesaver for learning to ride, otherwise one scraped palm and it’s all over for the day!!!