Lhasa and the Potala: the first days at altitude

Almost every Tibetan route starts in Lhasa, and the first two or three days here are arranged differently from an ordinary tour. Lhasa sits at 3,650 metres — an altitude where you already breathe differently, but can still walk and look around.

Day one: do almost nothing

The sensible thing on arrival day is to check in, take a slow walk and go to bed early. The feeling of "I am absolutely fine, let us go and explore" on the first evening is misleading: altitude sickness arrives by night and by morning, not straight away.

Drink a lot, eat properly, skip the local alcohol and do not smoke — four rules that sound dull and work better than any tablet.

The Potala

The palace is visible from almost anywhere in the old town, and up close it turns out to be larger than in photographs: thirteen storeys raised on a rock above the valley. Entry is by timed slot and limited in duration — roughly an hour through the halls, after which the flow moves on.

The climb to the entrance is several hundred steps at 3,650 m. Technically nothing difficult; in practice it is the first honest test of your acclimatisation. Walk more slowly than you want to.

The Jokhang and the Barkhor

The Jokhang is the central temple of Tibetan Buddhism and a place where pilgrims matter more than tourists. Around it runs the Barkhor: a street-kora along which a stream of people moves clockwise around the clock. Stepping into it is the simplest way to understand what a kora is, long before Kailash.

What to fit into three days

• The Potala — essential, and only with a ticket for a specific time.
• The Jokhang and the Barkhor — best early in the morning, when pilgrims outnumber tour groups.
• Drepung or Sera — monasteries on the edge of town; Sera holds philosophical debates among the monks in the afternoon.
• One free evening with nothing scheduled: it is needed more than another item on the list.

Further west

From Lhasa the road runs to Shigatse and on westwards, towards Manasarovar and Kailash. The altitude rises gradually, and three quiet days in the capital are not a prologue but the first part of preparing for the pass.