Day 10 - Aug 18, 2007 Saturday

 Tingri 定日- Shigatse 日喀則 / Gyantse 江孜

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We left Tingri in the morning heading back to Shigatse.  After putting our packs back to the hotel, we headed Gyantse to tour the Pala Manor 帕拉莊園, a place that will give you something of an insight into the lifestyle of the wealthy landowning people who once lived in this area.

Originally Pala, the former owner of the Manor, was a Bhutanese chief but due to civil strife in Bhutan, he moved to Tibet with his family where in due course he became a local official. At the time of the Tibet Democratic Reform in 1959 he left Tibet along with the Dali Lama to live in exile.

In the days before the Democratic Reform, the manor had included twenty-two smallholdings, six lots of grassland and farmland covering some 8600 Mu (1414.45 acres). More than 14,250 cattle were grazed here and 2,440 serfs worked on the estate. Their tasks included general farm labour and animal husbandry as well as wine production. In addition many were engaged in knitting, sewing and the catering chores and other tasks necessary for the running of the estate. The peasantry had virtually no freedom, were treated harshly and suffered a very inadequate standard of living. Yet through their labour they helped provide their master with a grand lifestyle while they lived in dark and overcrowded conditions with a lack of amenities that could hardly be imagined in a modern society.

That night, we went back to Shigatse and had dinner in a 'western' restaurant, Tashi Restaurant, opened by Indians, serving Indian, Continental, Nepal, Chinese... all kinds of cuisines!  We had masala, nam bread & pizzas etc!  We had a great night!

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