Lhasa by anDroidfrisBee Music not playing? Switch to HTML5 Player. Share:    Facebook Twitter Email

In Lhasa, Tibet, the city is jammed with tourists -not westerners though -Tibetan pilgrims who have walked many miles, sometimes hundreds or a thousand miles to be in what is for them the holiest place in the world.

There is an area called the Barkhor, which is a kind of square with some of the holiest temples of all. The pilgrims walk around and around this square, doing holy lap after holy lap of the temple circuit muttering chants to themselves.

One of the most bizarre experiences I've had was when I couldn't sleep my first night there (I had a bad altitude) and ventured out before dawn for a walk and stumbled upon this scene:

Thousands of Tibetan pilgrims stumble around and around the Barkhor muttering and chanting in an otherwise silent city. Cold morning mist and smoke from large bundles of incense fills the air. The occasional bell rings and echoes across the cobblestones. The stench of burning yak butter fills the air. It's like we've woken up 1500 years ago.