Potala Palace - Tibet's Architectural Masterpiece!

Hi guys! We are now at the Patala Palace behind me, which is a massive building built in the 7th century by what king? King Songsen Gangbo. And then it was also later added in the 17th century by the 5th Dalai Lama. Yeah, so that's why there's two different colored buildings. It's white by the Dalai Lama, the yellow, and the I would say maroon or red, reddish by the king. So that's why it's really cool. It's the difference of buildings, and we're about to go inside. The name Patala is in Mongolian language. The meaning is Avalokiteshvara stand, and that means the palace for the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara. So we are now inside of the Patala Palace. You'll notice that with this building, it is decorated in different colors because as I mentioned before, it's built by two different people, and so are designed. So the white buildings behind me, that part is for residence for the monks. Those are all the dormitories. There's museums, bars, restaurants, schools, official offices, because the Patala Palace is the capital city here of Tibet, so here in Lhasa. And this place used to be very lively, you know, it was like a bazaar. There was lots of markets, and this whole area was full of people, and people just lived here, and there was nothing outside of the Patala until about 1978. So it developed very fast, and now there's a whole city outside of it. This is where over like 2,000 monks, they would live in these dorms here in the white buildings. At the top you'll notice there's the red and yellow buildings, and that was for the monks for things like meditation, they would do secret chanting of mantras, and stuff like that. You'll also notice that there are some holes in the building, and that is because back in the day when they didn't have air conditioning, they'd have these holes to get fresh air into the building when it got really hot. So I believe now we are going to start walking up the stairs, there's 370 steps to the top of the roof of the palace, so let's go. We are now walking the 370 steps to the top of the roof of the palace. So fun fact is these steps here, they were not always here. It used to just be a ramp because they would bring horses to the top to the official's office, but they rebuilt it. I'm not really sure why. But over here, you can see what it actually looked like back in the old days. So they still kind of look like steps, but a little bit different. So this is actually what it was, compared to now when they reconstructed it, but this is what they'd bring the horses up. Something I find really cool is that every year they come and they repaint the patala to keep it fresh looking, and you said that you're one of the volunteers who come? Yeah, yeah, and most of the local people who like to volunteer to do something in the monastery, especially for the palace. Is it fun? Yeah, of course. Is it fun to paint with a bunch of people? Of course, yeah. And there's too many people coming, and from the palace they are offering a very delicious food for us, but we are not for that food. We are just coming here for voluntary to serve the palace. So do they close down the palace when you do this? Yeah. Prayer wheel is one of the... That's what this guy has? Yeah, this one. It's a prayer wheel that they store the scripture inside, and most of those are the mantra, that Mani Mantra, and they are spearing all the time, that represents they are chanting the mantra. From the 7th century that we found our language, which is that current scripture, no more people can read on that time. This reason, from that time they got the idea to put in a wheel to spearing clockwise, represent they are reading the book. This wheel is more used by the old people, because they are nothing to do anything in the daytime, they are always praying, always praying. So here we have the entrance of the palace, we are not allowed to film in here, if you can see in the distance, right here, we've got a ladder with the colored scarves, and so this is meant for the Dalai Lama, so when the Dalai Lama returns, they'll remove those scarves and then he'll go up this ladder, otherwise nobody's allowed to go up in, they have to go on the other side, so here on the top, you've got these yellow curtains, this is where the Dalai Lama will come, and he'll sit up there, and he'll watch down here for any of the performances, and then across the way, on this side, with the red curtains, this is for the tourists to be faced to the Dalai Lama here. So apparently something to see here is the toilet, there is a traditional style toilet in here that we're recommended to go see, so let's go check out the toilet. So this is the traditional toilet, it goes down as deep as 10.45 meters, so I guess traditional toilets back in the day, they'd be really deep like that. We are about to enter into this building here, we are not allowed to bring our cameras, actually if I were to bring it and take any sort of picture, they literally would take it away, so this camera is worth a lot, so I guess I'll just have to tell you about it when I get out. We just came out of the palace, and it was very cool, very beautiful, a bit cold inside, but very cool to see where the Dalai Lama, where his residence is, you can see where he prays, and just so many different statues. We also saw a bunch of tombs, actually the biggest tomb in the world is located here in the Patala Palace. The tomb belongs to the 5th Dalai Lama, and it's 12.6 meters in height, so it's very big. All the Dalai Lamas from the 6th Dalai Lama until the current have all lived in this palace, so that's why we saw different residences in there. Something important to know about the colors of the building, so everything that is painted red, red represents the power of religion, and then white represents a peaceful country, so here we've got the white and the red, and then, well you can see a little bit here, the yellow represents Tibetan Buddhism, so that is something that's important in the design of this place, is just the colors, and then the black also represents the ones that are around the windows and the doors, that represents the powerful deities, so deities to protect the building itself.