Category: Tibet

  • Pictures of Palcho (Palkor) Monastery in Tibet

    Pictures of Palcho (Palkor) Monastery in Tibet

    Palkor Monastery (sometimes referred to as Palcho, or Palchoi Monastery) was built in 1418 by the first Panchen Kezhugyi and took 10 years to complete. It is located on the outskirts of Gyantse and accommodates four different Buddhist sects: Gelug, Gagyu, Sagya and Nyingma, which is rare in Tibet. Each sect has its own praying hall, while the main hall houses the bronze statue of Sakyamuni, which is about eight meters high and weighs about 14,000 kilograms. On the flanks of the main hall are Arhat Halls that house some 100 finely crafted arhat statues with different facial expressions.

    The monastery is best known for it’s enormous pagoda, better known as “Bodhi Stupa”, or “Kumbum” in Tibetan. The 9 story pagoda is 42,4 meters high, has 76 halls with 108 doors and hosts about 3,000 statues and some 100,000 images of Buddha. This is why the pagoda is often called “One Hundred-Thousand-Buddha Tower”. These images include Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Vajras, Dharma Kings, Arhats, great adepts of different orders in Tibetan Buddhist history, and outstanding figures in Tibetan history such as Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen.

    All photographs are copyrighted. If you want to use any of them please find them on Alamy to buy the license and download high resolution images. If you intend to use them for non-commercial purposes or can provide something in return please contact me directly.

    PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHTED © by Sergiu Turcanu

  • End of Tibetan Trip

    I’m sitting in the “Music Bar” in Lhasa (the ones who’ve been here know this little cozy bar) right across Yak Hotel (the hotel I’m staying in). After our trip to EBC (Everest Base Camp) we came back to Lhasa, and now I’m the only person from our group left here. One by one they all left… it’s been 12 days now since I came from EBC. I enjoy Lhasa, I enjoy Tibet! This is one of these places you want to stay and do not want to leave, but sooner or later that must happen… and it will tomorrow.

    The reason I wasn’t writing anything in my “Tibetan Travelogue” is that on the train to Lhasa my computer just crashed, I think it was altitude seekeness. Really! First my hard drive seezed to work, and that was a real trouble, but when I managed to fix I found out that many other things don’t work either along with my CDMA internet card. I was allright with the high altitude, but not my laptop! Kiwi Dave’s iPod also seezed to work after the trip on the train to Lhasa. Misterious things!

    Well, anyway I decided to reinstall everything, I saved all my files on external hard drives and guess where I was installing the Windows? I am proud to announce now that my currently running Windows XP was installed on the bus during my trip through Tibet. The first part of instalation took part on Mt.Kanbala (4990m above sea level)! I wonder now how many OS’s were installed at same altitude. But the good thing is that ever since my computer is runing well. It is just me being lazy, could not find time to post some news… It is an amazing place here, you wouldn’t loose time for writing news.

  • On the train to Lhasa

    It is 5:30 AM, I’m on the train to Lhasa somewhere near Geerdu. The train moves slowly through the vast and monotone Tibetan plateau. It is so quiet, just from time to time your eyes looking out the window can catch a spot of a distant light – the human presence. Although the temperature outside the train is -3 C, it is warm inside – we all wear t-shirts. It is a new train which has been put into operation just recently (I think it’s August or September) and this train route is a dream-project which became true. We are all exited to be on this train and the scenery we’ve seen in the moonlight (it is almost a full moon now) was amazing – magnificent mountains covered in snow moving one by one through your window. Actually Dave referred to our window as being the best LCD screen in our cabin (we also have smaller versions each on top of our beds). I hope the scenery will get even better during day, when we’ll all still sleeping probably.

    PREVIOUS DAYS:

    Day 1 – Flight to Xining (Xiaoshan – Shanghai – Xi’an – Xining)

    Early in the morning I left my apartment in Xiaoshan where I spent previous 7 months and took the bus to Shanghai from where our trip to Tibet was about to start. We had to meet at the Pudong Airport

    Day 2 – Ta’Er Monastery, … Lake and the desert in snow

    Day 3 – Browsing through Xining and getting to the train to Lhasa