Views from the top of the world

When you fly into Lhasa you're expecting to see glaciers and pure white snow, and you do, but at some point the earth turns green and brown, there are lakes and rivers running in fields and trees and grass freely pop up out of the soil.

You realise that King Songsten Gampo, knew a thing or two about establishing kingdoms in the right location: it's very difficult to find and to enter, but there is safety and a place for life to be lead inside this valley for all Tibetans who come here.

Each day I catch the splendour of hundreds of new pilgrims coming to Lhasa, the holiest of cities for Tibetan Buddhists, to walk the koras around the Barkhor and the Potala Palace and to pay respect at dozens of temples, monasteries and nunneries dotted in and around the city.

Monks Debating (hand to hand combat is allowed) at Sera Monastery just north of the city center.

You can read and hear a lot about a people, a history, a situation, a government and those in exile, yet when you come here your mind starts to only then fathom the true enormity and complexity of the Tibet Special Autonomous Region in the PRC. One thing I have realised in a very short while, is that Tibetans have a great skill for adaptation and moving with the times to ensure parts of their culture remain just as real and relevant as they can be now as they were in the past.

Crossing the debating line in sneakers. Tibet is a land where adapting to your environment takes on a wholly new meaning.