Lhasa (Part 1): In Lhasa, Under the Sky – Dreams and Beliefs of Many
What does Lhasa mean to you? Faith? Pure air? A dreamland? Lhasa has clearly become a refuge for some, a source of spiritual sustenance. For urbanites bitten by the travel bug, there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t want to visit. Faith in Buddhism, a yearning for the vast sky, reverence for the Himalayas, and an escape from the mundane all drive people to journey to Lhasa, to Tibet.
But what do you gain after visiting Lhasa? Oh, another city to tick off your list. Mm, the air is fresh, the sky is blue with fluffy clouds, the people here are devout. And then? Then you go back to city life, resume your routine, and maybe you’ll come again someday.
My first urge to go to Tibet struck back in 2010. To be honest, it wasn’t the fabled scenery that tempted me; I just wanted to see Mount Everest. I bought a big backpack, a tent, compressed biscuits, a windbreaker, an outdoor flashlight, a compass—the whole survival kit—and binge-watched several seasons of Man vs. Wild. I also bought a thick survival handbook, which taught things like how to tell edible plants from toxic ones and how to tie stronger knots. The bit that stuck with me most: when your airway is blocked and you’re suffocating, feel your throat for a soft spot where pressing hard makes you cough—that’s the trachea. Slit it open with a knife, insert a clean tube, bandage it, and you can breathe again. (Writing this makes my skin crawl.)
Back then I was so naive, still fearful of the road. The tent later became a mosquito net, the compressed biscuits turned into everyday snacks, the outdoor flashlight a household torch, and the compass was totally useless. The windbreaker, though—I’ve worn it many times. It witnessed a 600-kilometer cycling trip of mine and now sits folded in my closet at home as a keepsake. The backpack is torn, but I still brought it to Lhasa. I’ve carried this bag to Hangzhou and later to Shanghai; it was stuffed full with every move, yet never for a real journey. This time I’m carrying it here, tattered as it is. I bought it eleven years ago with the dream of going to Lhasa, and eleven years later, I’ve finally made it here with it on my back.
If you weren’t told the altitude, you might think you’re in an ordinary mountain county town. Look around—the skyline is ringed by towering peaks, white snow capping the dark slopes. Buses here are convenient, with announcements in both Mandarin and Tibetan. Just as you can’t understand the Shanghainese dialect on a Shanghai bus or Cantonese on a Guangzhou bus, you also won’t catch the Tibetan that follows the Mandarin here—the rhythms are similar, and the bus models are the same, only newer than in most cities. On board, senior citizens tap their fare cards one after another. Two days in a row on the same route, I ran into the same pair of schoolgirls heading home. They wore blue-and-white sports uniforms, brand-name trainers on their feet, backpacks slung over their shoulders—just like students anywhere in China. They chatted together on the bus; sometimes an elder, usually a female family member, would come to meet them. Out on the streets, it’s mostly women with children; you rarely see men doing the childcare. Men are out making a living for the family.
Chasing after a bus at a jog and then standing still after boarding, I suddenly realized I might have been careless—what if the lack of oxygen triggers altitude sickness? In Lhasa, such worries are common. Sometimes an uneven breath makes you anxious, so you deliberately slow down or pause to catch your breath. Climbing stairs on an overpass, I dare not take big strides; I inch up step by step, still fretting over my panting. I envy those who can run freely on the streets. Once at a bus stop, a group of migrant workers with backpacks bigger than their bodies were discussing the route map. After a fruitless debate, they turned to me for help: they needed to get to the train station and asked which bus to take. I checked my phone and told them there wasn’t one from this stop, but they could walk to the next intersection, turn right, and find a stop there. They thanked me and trudged off with those enormous packs, following my directions.
On morning buses, passengers chant sutras in unison. You can’t tell what they’re reciting, only the murmur of their voices and the slight movement of their lips. Out on the streets, you also hear the sound of prayers, accompanied by spinning prayer wheels in one hand and a string of beads in the other. The altitude brings strong UV rays, so everyone wears a hat, yet even long-time residents have tanned skin. Their loose robes, half-draped, might be a practical answer to the wide temperature swings here—fully dressed when it’s cool, half-draped when it warms up. That’s my wild guess. Not everyone wears traditional Tibetan robes; some fashion-conscious locals stroll around in city-style coats. Houses are adorned with prayer flags: some flutter like multicolored bunting, others are bundled into tall poles. To outsiders, it’s a riot of color—beautiful and sacred. The purpose of prayer flags and wheels is the same as chanting: sutras are printed on flags and etched onto wheels, so when the wind catches them or the hand spins them, the merit multiplies. Add the spoken chant, and it triples the effect. Of course, faith isn’t about keeping count; only a bored mind would do the math.
On crowded footbridges, you’ll find beggars, but they don’t look destitute. They neither kneel nor kowtow; they just sit on the ground, a wad of small change in one hand, reaching out for alms. One even had a designer shoulder bag—maybe genuine, maybe not, but her worldly heart had clearly been stirred by fashion. Older Tibetan locals will sometimes fish out loose change for them. These beggars feed the virtue of generosity. True faith leaves no room for hesitation; it simplifies life. Even a sliver of doubt is an attachment to the mundane. In worldly cities, beggars compete through visual misery—amputated limbs, blindness, tales of ruined families—to elicit sympathy. That sympathy is the secular heart; only by trapping people in pity can suspicion be averted. Faith can’t fill your stomach, but it lets you eat without care. This world is full of filth. There are countless things that breed greed, like “eating”: from eating your fill to eating well, to eating exquisitely—desire for food and more is unleashed, people grow complex, thoughts grow avaricious. When we see a disabled beggar now, we don’t think how pitiful they are; we wonder if there’s a network behind them, if they were abducted as a child, drugged, and mutilated. We can’t give, we can’t fuel such cruelty. No profit, no harm. People’s minds are tangled, and beggars are no simpletons. The complexity of this world is unbearable to face head-on; a simple life eludes us. If you want to lower a group’s happiness, just show them the dazzling world—give them desires they can never satisfy.
Lhasa still preserves its alleyway culture: restaurants hide in lanes, guesthouses lurk in alleys, and residential areas are tucked away. The guesthouse I booked was buried deep in such an alley. With a small backpack on my chest and a large one behind, I wandered through the warren for a long time, finally finding it way inside—yet the lane stretched on even further. At night, these quiet alleys grow more desolate the deeper you go. As a kid, I never saw much difference between men and women, but the older I get, the more I realize how many privileges men enjoy. On the road, a man might secretly hope for some moonlit alley encounter; for a woman, a deserted lane at night is a place to hurry through, hoping nothing will happen.
This warren of lanes is a cluster of guesthouses, all calling themselves ‘inns’ to sound more artsy, run by out-of-towners who rented and renovated the spaces. The names are deliberately poetic—First Glimpse, Encounter, Time, Hidden Realm, Beauty—to appeal to travelers with wanderlust. Every innkeeper seems to have the same story: ‘When I came to Lhasa, I fell in love with it and couldn’t go back. Life isn’t just about working; you should do what you love.’ And what they love is running an inn in Lhasa, selling local specialties, and organizing chartered trips to nearby sights. You hear this story not just in Lhasa but in Dali, Yangshuo, Kashgar, Hangzhou... everywhere. When someone walks in, the staff greet you warmly—young people, probably partners in the venture. They keep a corgi, and elsewhere in these alleys you’ll find a husky and other dogs. Past the front hall there’s a sunroom with sofas and coffee tables; the boss usually sits there chatting, recommending spots, and suggesting itineraries. Beyond that lies a small courtyard, ringed by two-storey guest rooms. The courtyard has a few tables and chairs plus a hanging swing-bed, covered in dust and leaves—clearly not often used. The whole place exudes a slow-living vibe: dappled shade on the swing, a few fallen leaves, a corgi wagging its tail at you, a lamp, a cup of tea. Maybe that’s why young runaways open guesthouses all across the country.
Written by: Bin Ruren
Travelogue Directory: 1. Complex, 2. Streets, 3. Alleys
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