"Today only a few temples are still used for worship. Here visitors light lamps, leave behind donations and carry back offerings of blest barley and white scarves. Every so often you see Western tourists suffering while climbing up the 1,000 feet to the roof before being fully acclimatised. The Potala Palace is now a World Heritage site. . . Tibet is no longer a country ruled by religious leaders. Today's instruments of government are anything but theocratic. Notices from the offices of the Beijing government now replace edicts from the offices of the Grand Lamas. The Potala Palace is now more of a rich museum of Tibet's glorious past, than the splendid monastery of the Head of State."

--from Here Be Yaks by Manosi Lahiri

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