Day 3 in Tibet (Shigatse)
Door: Feng
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Feng
16 Juli 2007 | Nederland, Amsterdam
So here I am, safe and sound in Shigatse. This morning when I woke up, I felt pretty OK. The headache was almost gone and the same counts for alot of other sick people. We got our things, checked out of the hotel, got some breakfast and headed to Shigatse.
Once we got in Shigatse, we checked into our hotel rooms. After that we got to the nearest restaurant to get some lunch. That actually didn't turned out that well. We sat their for 3 hours in total. We ordered 6 dishes. After one hour the first dish came. After another hour the second dish came. So after another hour, we were so upset that we cancelled the other dishes. This was very amazing, in a bad way. Is this because of the specific restaurant or is this related to the Tibetan way of handling things. Are they used to take life so slowly, because of the altitude? You would say that after some generations living in Tibet, they would be quite well acclimatized. Ok whatever, hopefully I'll find the answer later on this trip.
So then the tourguide took us to see the Tashilihunpo monastry of Shigatse. It is quite big and there are some very nice buddha statues. I noticed, that the monks act very strange. They were pretty moody, they were half sitting and half lying down and some were playing with their mobile phones. So I am wondering, in what kind of extend are they still deticated to their religion. Me and Jacky were considering a scam. There weren't enough monks to guide all the tourists, so they took some guys from the streets to werk there parttime. Or the original munks mentality changed because of the upcoming tourism. They saw the light($_$).
After the monastry, everybody got their free time. We checked out a market, but there was no interesting to see. The other guys wanted to check out the old town part, but me and Jacky decided to go some other way. We just got us a rickshaw and toured around. We noticed that once we got at the other side of the town, there were only chinese people and the streets were filled with just build shops. We didn't had the feeling that we were in Tibet, but in China. I guess the chinese government commercialized the whole city. I bet they did the same thing with alot of other cities around lhasa and that they will do it to every city or village in Tibet. It's just a matter of time. It will give the whole chinese economy an extra boost. Great! So it was quite a big disappointment. We had the image that Tibet is a very remote place, which is just opened up by the chinese government. That at present time, most of the Tibetan culture is still intact. Well I won't conclude anything untill I have been to the other parts. Actually the feeling to be in China isn't that bad. It pretty felt like home. I just wanted to experience more of the authentic Tibetan way of live.
I will go to my hotel now to get some rest. Tomorrow we will go to Gyantse to check out the Palcho monastry and the day after we will go to Lhasa. We didn't had some Yak (tibetan cow) meat yet because we cancelled the dish, but I definately will try it. Ok check you guys later.
Once we got in Shigatse, we checked into our hotel rooms. After that we got to the nearest restaurant to get some lunch. That actually didn't turned out that well. We sat their for 3 hours in total. We ordered 6 dishes. After one hour the first dish came. After another hour the second dish came. So after another hour, we were so upset that we cancelled the other dishes. This was very amazing, in a bad way. Is this because of the specific restaurant or is this related to the Tibetan way of handling things. Are they used to take life so slowly, because of the altitude? You would say that after some generations living in Tibet, they would be quite well acclimatized. Ok whatever, hopefully I'll find the answer later on this trip.
So then the tourguide took us to see the Tashilihunpo monastry of Shigatse. It is quite big and there are some very nice buddha statues. I noticed, that the monks act very strange. They were pretty moody, they were half sitting and half lying down and some were playing with their mobile phones. So I am wondering, in what kind of extend are they still deticated to their religion. Me and Jacky were considering a scam. There weren't enough monks to guide all the tourists, so they took some guys from the streets to werk there parttime. Or the original munks mentality changed because of the upcoming tourism. They saw the light($_$).
After the monastry, everybody got their free time. We checked out a market, but there was no interesting to see. The other guys wanted to check out the old town part, but me and Jacky decided to go some other way. We just got us a rickshaw and toured around. We noticed that once we got at the other side of the town, there were only chinese people and the streets were filled with just build shops. We didn't had the feeling that we were in Tibet, but in China. I guess the chinese government commercialized the whole city. I bet they did the same thing with alot of other cities around lhasa and that they will do it to every city or village in Tibet. It's just a matter of time. It will give the whole chinese economy an extra boost. Great! So it was quite a big disappointment. We had the image that Tibet is a very remote place, which is just opened up by the chinese government. That at present time, most of the Tibetan culture is still intact. Well I won't conclude anything untill I have been to the other parts. Actually the feeling to be in China isn't that bad. It pretty felt like home. I just wanted to experience more of the authentic Tibetan way of live.
I will go to my hotel now to get some rest. Tomorrow we will go to Gyantse to check out the Palcho monastry and the day after we will go to Lhasa. We didn't had some Yak (tibetan cow) meat yet because we cancelled the dish, but I definately will try it. Ok check you guys later.
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