Big Trouble In Little Lhasa...

It's the 7th June today which is the highlight of the festival, and there were plenty of people in town. I must admit, I was feeling really wiped out due to lack of sleep and being at high altitude, so had an easy day.

After a bit of a walk around, it was off for a good coffee (or two) at The Summit Cafe, and then off to meet the rest of the group at 5pm for a Kora around the Potala Palace.

Here's a few pics I took:

The main square:



The incense burners were working on over time. They burn Juniper - so it smells of Gin every now and then:



And a close up of one of the burners:



The Potala Palace:





It's worth adding at this point that there is a massive military and police presence in Lhasa. In fact – there are military people with guns everywhere, and there are more security cameras than you'd find in a casino.

As we're walking back to the Hostel to meet up, I got my camera out to photo the street. About 100 feet away a group of 10 army guys are marching down the street and as soon as they see the camera start shouting and running towards me.

The guy in charge grabs my camera and starts shouting something in Chinese. So I grab my camera back and show him the picture saying I was only taking a picture of the street – and in all fairness the light wasn't good and you could hardly see them. Next thing – he grabs my camera back and says I have to wait, while he starts talking on his radio.

After a few minutes an even more senior guy appears on a bike and wants to see the photo. He keeps saying “erase, erase, erase” and after a few minutes I realize I'm going to have to erase it, so reluctantly I press delete. Which should have been the end of it.

But he starts scrolling through the pictures and picks another picture at random (which has no soldiers in it) and starts saying “erase, erase, erase”. The annoying thing is: it was a really awesome photo of the main square in Lhasa and I really didn't want to lose it.

So I try to reason with the guy, but he just keeps saying “erase, erase, erase”, and then starts laughing at me. I tried again to reason with the guy, but he just kept laughing at me – which was rather frustrating.

But in the end I figured, if I didn't delete the photo the chances were he would keep my camera, so I pressed delete. And then he gave me my camera back. I did take a moment to explain how annoyed I was, and that I write a blog and would be covering the whole incident for everyone to read – which he found highly amusing for some reason.

But at least I got my camera back.

When we turned up at the hostel the guide was a no show – so we did a walk around the Potala Palace, and then went for...Indian food...you can't beat a good curry... :-)

Halo effect at the Potala Palace:



Some "interestingly" named shops: