Julianne's Diary Day Ten-Tibet, Lhasa

As we climbed the 'red hill' towards the palace I was reminded once again how interconnected Tibet and climbing seem to be. At this altitude, and even after a week of acclimatising, it was slow going.

A view looking up at the red section of the Potala Palace in  Lhasa.[Photo:CRIENGLISH.com]

The palace can be divided into three levels. The first level is the huge basement used for storage, the second level is the white section and was traditionally used to handle governmental affairs. The third level is the red section and was built to house the 5th Dalai Lama's body. It has since been extended over the centuries and now houses the bodies of eleven Dalai Lamas.

The architecture of the Potala Palace is just brilliant and typical of the Tibetan style. Many of the rooms have their own style and the complex is a maze of corridors, steep staircases and various rooms.

The interiors of the palace's rooms are beautiful and use a myriad of colours, including red, yellow, blue, green and white. There are also many carved images, Thangka paintings and thousands of images of Buddha, as you might expect.

There is no shortage of gold used throughout the palace either with the 5th Dalai Lama's tomb, for example, decorated with thousands of pieces of jade, over 10,000 precious stones and wrapped in gold. There's been quite a lot of money invested in this already but that doesn't stop pilgrims pushing monetary offerings through the mesh at the tomb.

By the time we left the Potala Palace the sun had reappeared and we boarded our bus to head to the Dalai Lama's traditional summer palace, known as the 'Lo Bu Lin Ka' garden.