Couldnt get connectivity... hence could not sent blog material to Sharmila... also she is now traveling for her show so this gets uploaded via Walsall, UK!

21^st September

Today visited the The Drepung Monastery, the Norbulingka Palace, (summer Palace of the Dalai Lama) and the Sera Monastery,(biggest in Tibet -  It has 7700 resident monks).Every day at 15:00 hrs, the monks have a  one to one debate in a courtyard. The monk who is asking the question stands and asks the sitting monk questions. The questioning monk does a particular step work and with a flourish, claps his hands and kind of hurls the challenge to answer his question towards the sitting monk. This he does till the question is answered. There are about a hundred monks doing this simultaneously.

In the night as we were having a beer in the room before leaving for dinner Bian Ba asked me if I would like to go to a nightclub. I jumped to the offer. I had to see the night life in Lhasa. Since the place picks up late we went to ‘Pu Pu Kao’ around 23:00 hrs. Bian Ba’s local friend who took us there told me it was the best in the city. The club had a stage with performers singing karaoke to Tibetan and Chinese songs. Mostly slow music to which couples –men and women, women and women and men and men (…only for lack of the right partner in their company) waltzed around on huge a dance floor. The live singing was interspersed with women in traditional costumes performing various folk dances on the stage.  Not exactly a swinging place for youngsters but one of the few that has a dance floor, the others just have performers doing the traditional bit on stage, while you sit around and drink beer. A few beers later we decided to call it a day.