(Above photo: Ganden Monastery near Lhasa)
Summer is fast disappearing and it’s time to think ahead and make your travel plans to see you through the winter. A more unusual winter vacation to tell your friends and family about back home is a trip to Lhasa to experience the Tibetan Lunar New Year celebrations, known in Tibetan as Losar (lo means ‘year’ and sar means ‘new’). This is a great time to visit Lhasa if you want a truly memorable and moving experience to come home with from your next trip.
Monk walks past the incense-filled Jokhang Temple in Lhasa
Lhasa comes alive during Losar – the sound of fireworks and smell of incense fills the air, whilst the sight of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims prostrating as they complete the kora (pilgrimage) around the Jokhang Temple is an almost spiritual experience – it’s hard not to get caught up in it all, believer or not. Lhasa is a spiritual place at all times but never more so than at Losar. Tibetans from far and wide travel to the capital sometimes walking vast distances in order to reach Lhasa to celebrate and attain religious merit by visiting the holiest of temples. It’s a wonderful time for people-watching as you are able to see devout Tibetans from many different parts of Tibet and witness their varied dress, features and customs.
Monks gather around the abbot in a ceremony at the Sera Monastery for Losar
The new year is symbolically about purification and welcoming in the new, thus leading up to the new year people clean their houses, whitewash their homes, wear new clothes and put out colorful new prayer flags. They also burn spontaneous bonfires in the street to burn away the old and the evil and bring good fortune with the new. It’s a vibrant time to be in Lhasa with brightly dressed locals flocking to the temples and monasteries to pray for the coming year and make offerings. Robed monks decorate the temples and special religious celebrations take place.
Bonfire in Lhasa during Losar to symbolically burn away the old
The 7th of February 2016 is new years’ eve and the 8th is the first day of the Tibetan year of 2143, so it’s best to arrive on the 6th so you can experience the build up to the celebrations. The private tour itineraries will include visits to a number of monasteries such as Sera and Ganden, the famous Jokhang temple and of course the formidable Potala Palace. In the evenings you can retreat to the luxury of the Shangri-La hotel’s oxygen lounge where you can relax, sip local barley wine and recover from the altitude, or if you wish your aches and pains to disappear then you can head to CHI, The Spa for a treatment.
New prayer flags for Losar against a whitewashed wall of Ganden Monastery
There are some inconveniences to traveling to Lhasa at this time of year that should be noted. There are more people, albeit it being busy with locals rather than Chinese tour groups as in the summer; some places are closed to visitors at certain times during important ceremonies so being flexible with itineraries is recommended; day time temperatures average 10°C or 50°F but of course temperatures at night fall below freezing (it will still be cozy in the hotel though!). However, far outweighing this in our opinion is that going during Losar you are participating in a significant religious and social event for Tibetans which is both incredibly moving and inspiring and which you will remember for years to come.
You can read the full Lhasa at Losar itinerary here. To book your trip to Lhasa please complete the booking form here or you can contact your nearest China luxury travel agent listed here.
