Traveling in Tibet

Impressions of the Marco Polo Group Tour, June 2000

Note: This site is a collection of photos and impressions of a group traveling in Yunnan, PRC, and in Tibet in May and June 2000. It will be under construction for some time to come.

The photos are the property of the author of this web site. They were acquired with a Nikon Coolpix 950 camera at medium-high resolution and then manipulated with Adobe Photoshop. Click on a small photo for a larger version, albeit only in a 72 dpi version.

Map of Tibet (from Hybrid Designs)

Have a WAHAHA Break!

SHIGATSE--The Tashilumpo Monastery

Tashilumpo is one of the six great Gelugpa or Yellow Hat monasteries. IT was first built in 1447. Tashilumpo is the home of the Panchen Lama, the spiritual tutor to the Dalai Lama. The 10th Panchen Lama died in 1989 and is buried in Tashilumpo. His burial stupa was cast using 547 kg of gold.

We visited the Jamkang, which houses the Maitreya, the 26 meter high statue of the Future Buddha. We also visited the hall holding the stupas of the 5th through the 9th Panchen Lamas.

Tashilumpo once had 4700 monks living there, but today it has only about 800 (the limit on the number of resident monks prescribed by the Chinese government).

As usual, the paintings in the monastery were impressive. The one on the left depicts the origin of the Earth. On the right is a portion of the "1000 Buddha" hallway. Here there are1000 small paitings of Buddha, each one different, observing you.