A monk spins a series of prayer wheels in front of the 600-year-old Drepung Temple near Lhasa.  Prayer wheels are always spun in a clockwise direction to the ground - just as the Barkhor pilgrimage in Lhasa proceeds in a clockwise direction.

Temples in Tibet tend to be very run down and kept only in good enough shape to encourage visits and income from tourists.

These wood blocks are used to print sutras, mandalas, and images of the Buddha.  I considered purchasing one, but couldn’t figure out what I would do with it once I got it home.

“The Great Teacher, The Great Marshal, The Great Leader, The Great Captain; Long Live Chairman Mao.”  A remnant of the Cultural Revolution, the slogan appears on an interior wall of one of the buildings in the Drepung Temple complex.

The huge mountainside monastery once housed thousands of monks, and some claim it was the largest monastery in the world.  Today, it houses only hundreds, with nearly half the structures destroyed.

A huge buddha looks down upon the room where the monks worship.

Trinkets sold outside the temple entrance.  Many of the supposedly-Tibetan goods sold in Lhasa are actually from neighboring Nepal.

In addition to the Potala Palace, the Dalai Lama had a summer residence in Lhasa called Norbu Lingka.  Surrounded by a large park, Norbu Lingka is a much more modest structure than the imposing Potala - and much more pleasant to visit.

Entertainment in the park.  The performer’s costumes looked more Hispanic than Tibetan, but their music was quite lively and enjoyable.  They even smiled a lot, something I rarely saw in Tibet.

Detail above a doorway between structures at Norbu Lingka.

This attractive young Tibetan girl was one of many who surrounded our bus after visiting Norbu Lingka, to sell trinkets and tease the tourists.  Norbu Lingka was the only spot I found in Lhasa that had relatively high-quality merchandise, such as intricate wall hangings; still, the prices seemed much too high to give the merchandise serious consideration.