Lhasa Travel Guide: Potala Palace, Barkhor, Tibet Permit

The Jokhang was built in the 640s and is the holiest temple in Tibet. The Barkhor is the kilometre of streets around it, and from before dawn people walk it clockwise, spinning prayer wheels, some prostrating full length every few steps. Walk it with them, in their direction, early. Later it is a market street, which is fine too.

One of the three great monasteries of the Gelug school, the Dalai Lama’s branch of Tibetan Buddhism, founded in 1419 on the northern edge of the city. Most afternoons from about 3 pm, but not on Sundays, the monks debate in a walled courtyard: one stands, puts a question and claps his hands at the one sitting, who has to answer. Visitors watch from the edge.

The Dalai Lamas’ summer palace, a park of pavilions, ponds and trees west of the Potala, begun in the 1750s. Quieter and greener than anything else in the city, and the place to go when the altitude says rest.

Strong tea churned with yak butter and salt until it is pale and thick. Salty, rich, and better on the second cup than the first. Teahouses serve it by the flask.

Milky, sugary black tea, poured by the glass in the sweet-tea houses of the old town, where the whole neighbourhood sits for hours. Leave small change on the table; the server tops you up and takes from it. The big ones, such as Guangming near the Jokhang, pour butter tea too.

Tsampa is roasted barley flour mixed with butter tea into a dough, the staple of Tibet. Momos are steamed dumplings, usually yak meat. Both come to the table in any Tibetan restaurant along the Barkhor.

May to October brings warm days and cold nights. July and August get most of the year’s rain, mostly at night, and the biggest crowds. The Shoton festival, when a giant painted Buddha is unrolled on the hill at Drepung Monastery, usually falls in August.

Winter is cold and very clear, pilgrims from the countryside fill the Barkhor, and Potala tickets are half price from November to April.

Lhasa Gonggar airport is about 60 km southwest of the city, an hour on the expressway. Your agency usually meets you; an airport bus also runs to near the Potala.

Lhasa Station is south of the river, about 20 minutes by taxi from the centre. Trains from Xining take about 20 hours.

The old town is small enough to walk. Taxis in the city usually charge about 10 yuan, and Didi works too. The agency’s car covers anything outside Lhasa.

Alipay and WeChat Pay, both linked to a foreign card, work in most shops; keep coins and small notes for sweet tea. Signs are in Tibetan and Chinese. Small restaurants rarely have English menus, so ask your guide.

Stay in the old town around the Barkhor if you can: you step out to the kora at dawn and back to a teahouse, and nothing needs a car. The streets west towards the Potala have bigger, newer hotels.

1. Day 1. Rest. Walk the Barkhor slowly in the afternoon and sit in a sweet-tea house.
2. Day 2. The Potala at your slot, then the Jokhang and the Barkhor kora.
3. Day 3. Norbulingka in the morning, Sera for the debates at 3 pm (not on a Sunday).