Take Closer Step to The Potala Palace

The majesty of the Potala Palace has left a deep impression on me. Before I go to Lhasa, all I see is the positive side of it, straight and solemn. When I walk along the broad stone stairs slowly, and approach it, I experience the honesty and simplicity of the Potala Palace! The feeling is same with the phachara suites sukhumvit when I went to Forbidden City for the first time during Beijing tour.

The entrance of the Potala Place. The lawn is green. The white flowers blooming spatter in it, pure and fresh.

 

The white walls is around the Potala Palace which become a unique scenery.

 

The red wall on the top is Tibetan plant, moisture proof and shock proof.

 

The mottled red walls are based up by stones but the earth.

I continue to climb. The plateau reaction does not appear which I’m worried about.

 

The Red palace is located in the central of the Potala Palace, Connecting with the president palace hotel bangkok.

 

The Potala Palace is built on the top of the peak.

 

The Potala Palace is under the blue sky and white clouds at 10:00 in the morning.

 

The Potala Place comes into a mass of blossom.

The Potala Palace was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India, during the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

Lozang Gyatso, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, started the construction of the Potala Palace in 1645 after one of his spiritual advisers, Konchog Chophel (died 1646), pointed out that the site was ideal as a seat of government, situated as it is between Drepung and Sera monasteries and the old city of Lhasa. It may overlay the remains of an earlier fortress, called the White or Red Palace, on the site built by Songtsen Gampo in 637. Today, the Potala Palace is a museum.

The building measures 400 meters east-west and 350 metres north-south, with sloping stone walls averaging 3 m. thick, and 5 m. (more than 16 ft) thick at the base, and with copper poured into the foundations to help proof it against earthquakes. Thirteen stories of buildings – containing over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues – soar 117 meters (384 ft) on top of Marpo Ri, the “Red Hill”, rising more than 300 m (about 1,000 ft) in total above the valley floor.

Built at an altitude of 3,700 m (12,100 ft), on the side of Marpo Ri (“Red Mountain”) in the center of Lhasa Valley, the Potala Palace, with its vast inward-sloping walls broken only in the upper parts by straight rows of many windows, and its flat roofs at various levels, is not unlike a fortress in appearance. At the south base of the rock is a large space enclosed by walls and gates, with great porticos on the inner side. A series of tolerably easy staircases, broken by intervals of gentle ascent, leads to the summit of the rock. The whole width of this is occupied by the palace.

The central part of this group of buildings rises in a vast quadrangular mass above its satellites to a great height, terminating in gilt canopies similar to those on the Jokhang. This central member of Potala is called the “red palace” from its crimson colour, which distinguishes it from the rest. It contains the principal halls and chapels and shrines of past Dalai Lamas. There is in these much rich decorative painting, with jewelled work, carving and other ornament.

The Chinese Putuo Zongcheng Temple, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built between 1767 and 1771, was in part modeled after the Potala Palace. The palace was named by the American television show Good Morning America and newspaper USA Today as one of the “New Seven Wonders”.

If you join Beijing one day tour, then Forbidden City must be included in the itinerary; similarly, if you visit Lhasa, then Potala Palace must be in your list.