Suffering from altitude sickness, I arrived in Lhasa, capital city of Tibet. Here I found some miracles that really surprised me.

The Potala Palace without any blueprint

Located on the Red Hill of Lhasa, the Potala Palace was first built in the 7th century, for the wedding of Tibetan King Songtsan Gompo and Princess Wencheng of China's Tang Dynasty. Since it was completed, the palace has been expanded many times.

Now the Potala Palace is composed of the Worship Hall and the Pagoda Hall, the North Square, the South Square and the Dragon King Pond. The main building has 13 floors, with a height of some 110 meters and a width of about 360 meters. It is surrounded by eight temples, in which  there are tens of thousands of Buddhist statues. In the Buddhist Practice Cave made in the 7th century, the paintings of Songtsan Gompo and Wencheng are preserved. Pagodas in the Pagoda Hall for each of the Dalai Lamas are well built. In particular, the pagoda for the 5th Dalai Lama has a gold covering decorated with jewelry. Another important building is Qingsha, where the ministers for administering Tibetan affairs of the Qing Dynasty presided over the inauguration of the Dalai Lamas.

The most surprising thing of the palace was that the palace did not have any blueprint for its construction at all. That was because during the long period of its construction, it had been built part by part on the hill and now it came to the full scale in front of our eyes.

Pious Buddhists prostrate along the ways

In the morning, Buddhist followers can be seen everywhere. They prostrate again and again with their full bodies on the ground. They keep standing up and kneeling down...

Around the Patala Palace, the Jokhang Temple and the Drepung Monastery, you can meet more Buddhists believers in Tibetan costumes kneeling and praying.

Even on highways, there are pious Buddhists prostrating!

At each hotel, each courtyard, Buddhist pictures are worshiped. And Buddhist scriptures are carved with various kinds of Tibetan decorations on the Barkor Street, the most famous and prosperous street in Lhasa.

In Tibet, gods exist everywhere.

Boil noodles with pressure cooker

In Tibet with a high altitude, many things that are taken-for-granted in inland areas of China become difficult here.

To have hot pot dish, you need to cook meat with a pressure cooker first. And even noodles and Jiaozi (dumplings) should be cooked in a pressure cooker.

That is because of the thin air on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which also causes many mountain diseases such as high altitude heart disease and monge disease. Pulmonary edema caused by colds even deprives of many people’s lives.

Many aid-Tibet cadres from inland areas are bothered by both diseases and homesickness. But they are very optimistic and often joke: "I have bigger heart than you, so does my spleen."

When I returned to Beijing where I live, I began to miss Lhasa. Here I do not lack oxygen, but I can't meet many things especially such miracles in Tibet...

(Source from People's Daily)