The Jokhang Temple

The Jokhang Temple is the most holy place in all of Tibet. For Tibetan Buddhists, this is the mack daddy! Young and old alike, they flock to come here and pray.

 

 

From the outside, we could see a massive line of people waiting to go in. All those people wanted to pray to every single Buddha and in every single room in the temple. This thing looked like it was at least a 2 or 3 hour line. But, seeing as we were not going in to pray, only to look, it was like we had a Disney FastPass. We got to skip the line and go right into the main courtyard.

 

 

From there, we went right into the temple, squeezing in through the sea of humanity. As spiritual as visiting the Dalai Lama’s summer residence had been, this was almost the exact opposite. The stench inside the temple was almost overwhelming with incense and human sweat combining to form a smelly haze that hit you the moment you entered the building. We were pressed up against walls, elbowed to the side, and battled to move anywhere alongside the waves of praying Buddhists. Our group was often separated from each other when someone waiting in the prayer line would burst into our “tourist line” so they could move ahead a bit with the tourists before returning to the prayer line.

 

Have I mentioned the floors? They were covered in a layer of slime created by the oils everyone brings into the temple to offer up to the monks. The faithful bring the oil in thermoses and baggies and it often spills on the floor. I swear, some of us would have slipped and fallen hard to the stone floor, except there were so many people around it was pretty much impossible to fall down. It was not an experience I have any desire to repeat.

 

However, when we were all done and about to leave the Temple area, I saw a few monks and figured I would ask one of them if we could take a picture with him. He gladly complied. The resulting photo has made everyone else in the group jealous and several have commented that they wish they were as brave as me to approach the monks and ask for a photo. Ahh well, fortune favors the brave, I suppose.

 

 

I don’t care how much of a nerd you are, getting a picture with a Tibetan monk is cool ;)