The Fortress Town of Gyangze
November 15th 2008 08:33
It has been a while since I have written but this morning I was listening to the BBC and heard that his holiness the Dalai Lama was callling certain Tibetans to Darasalam in India for a meeting ,regarding his struggles over the years with China ,to have them listen to him and his followers about any compromise or negotiations regarding his beloved Tibet.
To date of course China has been not negotiable with any form of compromise when it came to Tibet.
Therefore I thought , it is rather sad to find people still in todays world unable to sit down and discuss issues and come to agreements. Not that China is the only country that has this impass in political terms, there are many other nations as well.
Let's hope some issues can be settled on the question of Tibet in the very near future in a peaceful manner.
With regards to my journey through Tibet , the next place on my trip was the fortress town of Gyangze, some 254km south west of Lhasa. Probably at the time of my travels was the least influenced town by the Chinese and for that reason it was very interesting in more ways than one.
For everywhere we travelled throughout Tibet on our journey , our guide had to stop at many many checkpoints and present our papers , we were not issued stamps in our passports for that matter we were listed all on one document and this was held by our guide.
Therefoore we really could not have ventured off by ourselves as it was all controlled and check pointed throughout our trip by the Chinese authorities.
Here in Gyanngze was the magnificent tiered Kumbum , there is only one other structure similar to it some 60 km north east of Lhatse
Gyangze Kumbum once contained some 15 monastries of which none really remain.
Here once upon a time 3 orders of the Tibetan Buddhism were together , 9monastries belonged to the Gelugpa, 3 to the Sakyapa and also 3 to the Bupa.
Bupa was a smaller unknown order whose main monastery was near Shigatse known as Zhalu.
Gyangze was a major route of trade for wood and also wool between India and tibet and also it was somewhat a crossroads to other regions and also the country of Bhutan.
It was the third largest town when the rulers were Tibetan .
There was also the famous advance of Colonel Younghusband onto Lhasa from Gyangze , and Bristish troops were held up here for a number of months .
I will not go into the history of this now but needless to say what prompted the British Empire to advance on Tibet was to make sure the wild rumour of Imperial Russia had designs on Tibet would not happen.
Although it is an interesting subject I will not go further with it here but should any reader want to know more they should look up information on Colonel Francis Younghusband and his Expedition to Tibet.
Gyangze has a large vegetable market under cover and it was great to be able to buy some fresh fruit. Snow apples were delicious .
The Gyangze Hotel is where we stayed with our group, neat and tidy and had a pool table which we all had great fun with as well as darts.
As there were a few restaurants so to speak , we also went out for dinner which was interesting as the menu was not in English , the main thing was that it tasted good.
Even though we have been travelling at various altitudes of up and down it does affect you when you are travelling at a fairly good pace in a vehicle as we were. It is probably better to stay in one place for longer to get used to the altitude one is at. We did not have that luxury unfortunately. I would have loved to have explored the countryside in this magnificent setting but that definitley was not allowed.
Whatever we saw and did was totally controlled, hopefully one day I can return at my own leisure and return I intend to.
From Gyanngze we will head for Lhasa which is 6 to 7 hours of driving .
The scenery is rich and breathtaking again.
To date of course China has been not negotiable with any form of compromise when it came to Tibet.
Therefore I thought , it is rather sad to find people still in todays world unable to sit down and discuss issues and come to agreements. Not that China is the only country that has this impass in political terms, there are many other nations as well.
Let's hope some issues can be settled on the question of Tibet in the very near future in a peaceful manner.
With regards to my journey through Tibet , the next place on my trip was the fortress town of Gyangze, some 254km south west of Lhasa. Probably at the time of my travels was the least influenced town by the Chinese and for that reason it was very interesting in more ways than one.
For everywhere we travelled throughout Tibet on our journey , our guide had to stop at many many checkpoints and present our papers , we were not issued stamps in our passports for that matter we were listed all on one document and this was held by our guide.
Therefoore we really could not have ventured off by ourselves as it was all controlled and check pointed throughout our trip by the Chinese authorities.
Here in Gyanngze was the magnificent tiered Kumbum , there is only one other structure similar to it some 60 km north east of Lhatse
Gyangze Kumbum once contained some 15 monastries of which none really remain.
Here once upon a time 3 orders of the Tibetan Buddhism were together , 9monastries belonged to the Gelugpa, 3 to the Sakyapa and also 3 to the Bupa.
Bupa was a smaller unknown order whose main monastery was near Shigatse known as Zhalu.
Gyangze was a major route of trade for wood and also wool between India and tibet and also it was somewhat a crossroads to other regions and also the country of Bhutan.
It was the third largest town when the rulers were Tibetan .
There was also the famous advance of Colonel Younghusband onto Lhasa from Gyangze , and Bristish troops were held up here for a number of months .
I will not go into the history of this now but needless to say what prompted the British Empire to advance on Tibet was to make sure the wild rumour of Imperial Russia had designs on Tibet would not happen.
Although it is an interesting subject I will not go further with it here but should any reader want to know more they should look up information on Colonel Francis Younghusband and his Expedition to Tibet.
Gyangze has a large vegetable market under cover and it was great to be able to buy some fresh fruit. Snow apples were delicious .
The Gyangze Hotel is where we stayed with our group, neat and tidy and had a pool table which we all had great fun with as well as darts.
As there were a few restaurants so to speak , we also went out for dinner which was interesting as the menu was not in English , the main thing was that it tasted good.
Even though we have been travelling at various altitudes of up and down it does affect you when you are travelling at a fairly good pace in a vehicle as we were. It is probably better to stay in one place for longer to get used to the altitude one is at. We did not have that luxury unfortunately. I would have loved to have explored the countryside in this magnificent setting but that definitley was not allowed.
Whatever we saw and did was totally controlled, hopefully one day I can return at my own leisure and return I intend to.
From Gyanngze we will head for Lhasa which is 6 to 7 hours of driving .
The scenery is rich and breathtaking again.
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