We started the day preparing our bikes. They all had to be unboxed, assembled and the hired ones (all but my 29er) had to be personalized with saddles, pedals, computers etc. This took most of the morning leaving the afternoon for more temples and monasteries. Our first stop was just around the corner from our hotel on the other side of Barkhor square. The Jokhang temple (built in the 7 Century) is the most sacred and important temple/monastery for most Tibetans. As always there were hundreds of pilgrims there when we visited.
Two of the pilgrims activities were the Bahka and prostration. The Bahka is a continuous clockwise walk around the temple, the square, Lhasa, or even wider afield. Prostration is complete laying down on a mat, standing up, moving the mat forward one body length towards the temple then laying down again. This is repeated. Prostration might start just outside the temple, in the suburbs or hundreds of kilometres from the temple.
Between Jan 1st and Jan 15th each year the monks at Jokhang chant continuusly. When there were 40,000 monks there (before the Chinese) their chanting could be heard for miles around the city.
After Jokhan, Kungchock called up our tour bus to head off to the Potala palace. I was feeling somewhat seedy and backed out of a further temple. When the rest returned and reported the excessive queueing and walking I was glad I had made the decision.
Saturday 25/10/10
On Saturday we got on our bikes for the first time to do a 25km tour of Lhasa and to check out our bikes. We had an uneventual ride out through the back of the City, along the river to the railway station and finished up at the Potala palace and a great golden statue of yaks.
I finished the day having a stroll around some of the more elaborate shops. There are an incredible number of upmarket jewellery and fashion shops with far fewer potential customers around than the shop assistants to serve them. A lot of the jewellers had a small workshops in view with the manufacturing in progress.
Sunday 26/9/10
We rolled out of Lhasa about 1.5 hrs late as the vehicle hire place had re-allocated one of our vehicles. Sanjeeb eventually got it sorted. Best part of 20km before we got clear of the City.
Just after I noticed John (Aus) had a somewhat sqwiffy back wheel. We stopped shortly after for lunch and I discovered a broken nipple which we fixed up.
After lunch we stopped at a village down the road to pick up some cheap pillows and discovered only 2 of us arrived. Iain had got a puncture and no one had a pump!!. The back up 4wd came and grabbed one from us and the second half of the group eventually arrived. In the meantime John (NZ) now had a flat tyre. We discovered a damaged tyre which we temporarily fixed with some currency. We picked up pillows for 13RMD (about 30c) each and I tried unsuccessfully to replace some velcro which had gone missing from my bike.
We reached Gampa after a flat 85km ride and some bike trouble which we hoped would only prove to be initial teething trouble. We settled into our first night's camp. Comfortable tents, a great cooked dinner and a pretty site.
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