A Lhasa Temple

After entering the Barkhor you eventually reach a well fed flaming chorten on your right. Women sell juniper and cedar. Next to the chorten is a rectangular building containing a large prayer wheel as pilgrims pace worn stone spinning the wheel. Around the building are copper prayer wheels.

Up a small alley is a small two-story temple. This is where you go every day after dawn to sit with monks, often more than once a day. It has the feeling and energy you need.

Chanting, drums, incense, people being blessed. After spinning rows of copper prayer wheels lining the building, they enter and either pass into a small temple at the base or climb narrow stone steps and through a well worn door hanging into the upper level.

There are three ornate, copper plated Buddhas facing you. Past, present and future Buddhas. Their base is on the ground floor. Rows of butter lamps, fruit offerings, kata scarves, money, coins. On the right are two worn wooden benches. On the floor is a large pan full of round clay balls. People take a ball when they enter and rub the paste on their faces and hands before dropping it into a pan. They join people waiting to be blessed.

A monk sits on a raised platform swathed in burgundy robes. He holds the vajra diamond thunderbolt and bell in his left hand ringing out a continuous tone as he chants sutras. Gathered with bowed heads at his feet are jostling groups of pilgrims to receive his blessing. He goes through the cycle, chanting, touching people on their heads with the thunderbolt, then pours holy water on their heads. They ease away as others push forward.

Pilgrims flow into the room, spoon butter into the flickering candles, move clockwise past the Buddhas making their offerings. You rub the paste on your face and hands, kneel and feel the water penetrate your scalp before sitting on the bench next to smiling old women and men focusing on the compassionate eye.

Wandering in freezing January air appreciating the brilliant sky, snow covered mountains ringing the valley, joining the river of devout pilgrims mixed with sellers - skins, carpets, hats, heavy wool coats, prayer flags and kata scarves in rainbow colors, old saddles, bridles, gongs, cymbals, incense, prayer beads; turquoise, coral, glass, wood, stone, yak bone, cheap plastic.

It's a curious mix of the devout making their kora circular motion, spinning prayer wheels, clicking beads, moving along with the odd Chinese police, merchants, kids, and beggars.

Side streets offer tables of huge yellow cakes of butter, slabs of meat as laughing men hack through bone, weighing it up on old scales. Piles of yak heads, glistening butter, rolling carts of dried fruit from Xinjing - apricots, raisins, dates. Merchants from the far west in skull caps, white beards.

Off the Barkhor down narrow twisted alleys - found a coral and silver necklace from a single woman emptying her bags on a metal table covered in cardboard. She was all alone against a wall.

Severed tree branches with prayer flags stapled to their thin arms stand against a house. The trees have been cut into long slender segments. This New Year, or Losar, people will buy them, climb onto their roofs and replace the old ones on four corners.

A smiling man inks prayer flags. He sits in partial sun with rolls of white, red, blue, yellow, green cotton cloth to his left. On a pillow are two 8×10 carved wooden blocks. Black ink from a plastic bottle sits in a small pan. He sponges up what he needs and coats a block. He pulls white cloth over it, centers a segment, slides his hand into a torn plastic bag, starts at the bottom and applies pressure up, down, sideways. Ink bleeds fabric. He pulls fabric through, re-inks the block, repeating the procedure.

A man next to him cuts dried cloth into individual prayer flags, stapling rainbows to thin branches.