Beautiful Lhasa-Potala Palace:Tibet in Pictures

 

In previous post Dr. Wentao Wang shared some pictures depicting life around Tibet. For this post he has send some photographs of Potala Palace.  This palace is located in Lhasa, Tibet autonomous region of China. While posting pictures on this blog, I was reading about this palace in wiki. It is very interesting palace. It was a palace until Dalai Lama was there and it is a museum now. It was built in 1645. The building is 400 x 350 m with stone walls averaging 3 m. thick, and 5 m. (more than 16 ft) thick at the base. Thirteen story building contains over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues – soar 117 m. Before the first skyscrapers were built, the Potala Palace was the world's tallest building.

Here are some pics of Potala Palace in Lhasa.

Life in Tibet: Tibet in Pictures

Barkhor Street

Dr. Wentao Wang, a friend of mine traveled to Tibet on first and second week of May from Beijing. His plan was to go to Nepal after Tibet visit. Unfortunately he was not able to make because of the strike, the so called 3rd people's movement, by MAOIST. I suggested him to cancel his trip to Nepal. He spend that time in Tibet. He is still asking me whether he can go to Nepal on July. But I couldn't say anything. This is very unfortunate to Nepalese tourism industry. In this post he likes to share some of the photographs he had taken during his Tibet trip.

The first photograph is of Barkhor Street which is located in old area of Lhasa City and is a very ancient round street surrounding the Jokhang Temple (picture is below) and the Tibetan people are always proud of it. As a symbol of Lhasa, this street is also a must-see place for the tourists.

Mt. Rushmore National Memorial Visit

While returning from our recent trip to Vermillion, SD, we visited Mount Rushmore National Memorial. This place has sculptures of the heads of four former US presidents. In above picture they are (left to right): George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). These four presidents represent the first 150 years of the history of the United States.

 I liked the place around. It is hilly region and specially I love to drive on roads passing through such landscape. Hills are covered with evergreen pine family trees. The monumental graphite sculpture was created by  Gutzon Borglum in 1941 and is is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. The sculpture is 60 foot big and it took ~14 yrs for 400 workers to carve it on the stone of the hill. This place is one of the main tourist attraction of South Dakota state. Approximately two million people visit this place every year. Noted that during winter it is covered with snow and not accessible to general public.  During our visit-actually stop by, there were many people even though the weather was not very good.

I and Rajendra with Mt Rushmore shirts

Picture quality is not good. These pictures were taken by a camcorder. If you are somewhere in this area, you should definitely visit this place. During summer you can also do camping.

Travelling ~1800km this weekend-enjoying long drive

Long drive started yesterday morning and will end probably tomorrow night. By the end of this trip, I will travel ~1800km on the US highways. Shashidhar Belbase and Rajendra Mahat are with me. This is my first trip of such kind. Long drive it self is fun. We really enjoyed our trip to Vermillion, SD yesterday and hoping more fun tomorrow's back trip through different route.

 

We crossed state of Nebraska almost from west to east (position A to B in the above picture). Our decision not to go through Omaha was right. We drove through highways 80, 14, 50's which run through farm lands in Nebraska. When we started our journey from Laramie, WY, it was snowy little bit not green much. Going to Colorado and then Nebraska had different landscape and geography. I liked specially the landscape of Nebraska. It looked same everywhere we came across. All green, corn farm, cow farms, farming tools and storage houses.

Somewhere in Nebraska.

अमेरिकाको डेन्भरमा हजारौको जुलुस

यो फोटो नेपालको जुलुसको होइन, अमेरिकाको हो। संयोग कस्तो परेछ भने नेपालमा माओबदीले आन्दोलन सुरु गरेकै दिन यहा पनि ब्यापक जुलुस निस्केछ। काम बिसेसले डेन्भर पुग्दा त्यो जुलुस देखेर दङ परे म त। नेपालमा जुलुसमा सामेल भएको, सानो देखि ६२-६३ को ठुला ठुला जुलुस देखेको अनि सामेल भएको मान्छे। अमेरिका को ब्यस्त दैनिकि को बिचमा पनि हजारौ मान्छेको जुलुस,नारा घन्काउदै। स्वभाबिक रुपमा नेपालको र यहाको तुलना गर्न मन लागिहाल्ने। नेपालको जस्तो हिंसात्मक, अराजक त होइन। मान्छेको सन्ख्या हजारौको थियो। हात हातमा प्ले कार्ड बोकेका  र नारा लगाइराखेका। निश्चित बाटोमा घुम्दै थिय निश्चित समयसम्म। downtown Denver को traffic ठप्प थियो।

अस्ति मात्रै अ मेरिका को अर्को राज्य एरिजोनाले immigration सम्बन्धी नया कानुन पास गर्यो। तो कानुनले यहा निकै हल्ली खल्ली मच्चेको छ। केन्द्रिय देखि अन्य राज्यहरु सम्म। यसको बिरोधमा भयको जुलुस थियो डेन्भरको आजको जुलुस। मैले त्यो कानुनको बारेमा तेति धेरै जानकारि त राखेको त छैन। तर पनि यो कानुनले गैर गोराहरु बिरोधी भएको, राज्य पुलिसलाई असिमित अधिकार दिएको र racial भएको भन्ने आरोप बिरोधिहरुले लगाएका छन। एरिजोना राज्य मेक्सिको देश सङ जोडिएको छ। पारि मेक्सिको तिरबाट आ उने अबैधानिक आप्रबासी समस्या समाधान गर्ने उदेस्यले यो नया कानुन ल्याको तेहाको राज्य सरकारले बताएको छ। अफ्ठ्यारो के ले पार्यो भने पुलिसले जस्लाई पनि सोद्पुछ गर्न सक्ने भयो र उसको immigration सम्बन्धि कागजात माग्ने भयो। सबैलाई समान ब्यवहार भये त केहि समस्या थेन। पुलिसले सोद्खोज् गर्ने भनेको गैर-गोराहरुलाई हो। जो ल्याटिनो जस्तो देखिन्छ उनिहरुलाई। यो कानुनको समर्थनमा खासगरि रिपब्लिकन छन। अहिले को आर्थिक मन्दिमा अबैधानिक आप्रबासी ले खास अ मेरिकनको जागिर खोसेको आरोप लगाउनेहरु यो कानुन बाट खुसि छन। 

आजको मैले देखेको जुलुसमा धेरै जसो गैर्-गोरा हरु थिय। बच्चा, बुढा, अपाङ पनि सामेल थिय। लौ नेपालको जुलुसले के गर्ने हो तर यहाको जुलुसको सुनुवाई होलाकि कुनै न कुनै रुपमा। अन्तिममा अ मेरिकन राश्ट्रपति ओबामा पनि एरिजोना राज्यको यो नयां कानुनको बिपक्षमा रहेछन।

Slogan: America Needs immigration Reform

Children in the rally

sfads

Elderly woman

 Reminding Obama that he got their vote

 Disable person in the Rally

There were thousands of protesters