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A day in Lhasa (Tibet)
A day in Lhasa took a wander round the palace today - amazing stuff obviously the main location off the Dalai Lama and hence the seat of government for the last thousand years or so. All the main Lamas are buried there in tombs covered in gold several thousand kilos each - one of the boys estimated it in tens of millions of dollars. It left me feeling they'd abused their own people by accumulating so much wealth when there is clearly, even today, extremes of poverty just outside the palace walls. The Chinese have a heavy army presence in the town literally on the main street a squad on each major intersection - seems to me they're not doing a bad job at keeping order. It's easy to criticise but it looked to me like they'd significantly improved the average Tibetans life - the lack of freedom seems of offend some but it seems to me if you want a fair society first of all you have to have some way of getting people to put down their guns. A quote from the movie Full Metal Jacket springs to mind "These****s they'd rather be alive than free, I guess. Poor dumb b******s"
Went to a Tibetan opera afterward didn't understand a word but had a good time anyway - actually quite a spectacle much better that I expected my guess is the Chinese support it with a significant chunk of dosh - clever b******s these lads no wonder they're about to own the world.
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