The Monastery is on a mountain, couple of hours east of Lhasa and also a couple of thousand feet higher then the city. We arrived there by a bus that took us up a perfectly zigzagged mountain road. This was a day of some festival, so hundreds of people were already there. After getting off the bus, we had about a half-a-mile walk up hill to the monastery. We had already spent a few days in Lhasa and were used to getting around there, even stairs weren't much of a challenge anymore. However, as we were making our way up this hill, I had to stop more and more frequently. There was a ringing in my ears and I felt dizzy. It didn't help that everyone was burning incense along the way, so instead of inhaling thin air, we were breathing smoke of some holy grass.
We squeezed through the crowd just in time for the ceremonial unveiling of an image of the Buddha. At which point everyone started throwing white scarves at him (the Buddha). Most projectiles wouldn’t actually make it all the way, so they would be picked up by someone in a crowed and helped on their way to the Buddha. It was pretty cool, since the white scarves looked like little meteorites and they were coming from every direction towards the Buddha, kind of like falling stars traveling towards the moon.
