0n the mountainside, five miles outside Lhasa, is Drepong Monastery.
The largest monastery in Tibet, I think.
Certainly, at one time, it had 10,000 monks here.
A lot of walking up the steps. A very steep religion, Buddhism.
In here is the prayer hall where the monks will be gathered for morning prayers.
(FAINT CHANTING)
This was once - about ten years ago in the '90s -
a hotbed of anti-Chinese feeling
and they cracked down hard on the monks here.
Now it seems to be tolerated.
It's probably not a political situation here any more.
They're left free to practise their religion.
Here's the end of prayers and off they go. The young monks.
A lot of them wear not sandals or anything too aesthetic but quite modern trainers.
0therwise the robes are the same. The presence of pilgrims.
This man with two prayer wheels trying to get maximum benefit.
A place at the moment untouched, really, by the Chinese.
Not far from Yushu, where we see the horse fair -
the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau -
Duker, my Tibetan friend, and I walk round a temple
that's called, if I remember rightly, Gyianac.
The speciality of this extraordinary temple are a collection of mani stones.
...the mani stones. - Yes.
(DUKER) Also from Amdo. (PALIN) From Amdo, yeah.
(PALIN) And is it true that the bigger the wheel,
the better it is for you, the more benefit you get?
Surely, yes. It's like when you're thirsty, two glasses of water are better than one glass.
That's right, yes. Very good. Very Buddhist.
So how heavy is this? You push it from down there? That's big, isn't it?
- (DUKER) Look at this one. - Oh, wow, yes. That's huge.
She's been up all night.
The prayer wheel.
Ah, here are the mani stones I was talking about.
This is a very sacred site. Been here since the 13th century.
People doing the "kora" - the walk around the site.
Just the walk itself gives you a certain amount of merit.
(PALIN) So what's the process? Do people buy a stone...
and then write their own prayer on it?
No, no.
If you want, you can order it.
It's more convenient.
A lot of people come and buy one, but most likely you'd order it.
You go to a mani seller or a shop and it's done for you?
- You choose the text? - Yeah.
How much do people pay for them?
The small ones the lady was selling just one yuan each.
But that big stone is probably several hundred or even thousand yuan.
- How much are they? - Five.
Five. Oh.
- Oh, dear. One, two, three, four... - I have one here. Do you have enough?
I might have another one somewhere else.
- Um... - Here.
Thank you. Now I'll have to include you in my mani.
Thank you very much.
So... I've got a band of admirers.
- So I put one of these in the? - Or you can put it back to your home.
Oh, I'd quite like to leave it in the wall. Is that OK?
- Surely. It's upside down, Michael. - What?
- This way. - Oh, right, yeah. That way.
- And I put it in up there. - With your wish.
- Yeah. OK. I've wished. - OK.
It looks a bit... Right.
I wished for stamina. We've still got a long way to go.
- These are all mani stones? - Yes. We have to step on the mani stones.
So please chant mantra - "Om Banzra Sato."
- Om Banzra Sato. - Om Banzra Sato.
Yeah. If you accidentally do some wrong, it's to reduce your sin,
because we're stepping on somebody's stones.
- But they've put them down here, so... - See? Most of them destroyed...
In what sounds like an almost 0scar-winning piece of insensitivity,
the Chinese used some of these stones recently for some toilets they were building nearby.
- Do people just dump them? - No.
You have to individually place your mani stone down? Is that right?
- You can't just get someone to bring it for you? - No, no.
Some of them are some sutra, but I don't know exactly which sutra.
But mainly it's this one.
This.
- Yeah. - Om Mani Padme Hum.
- Om Mani? - Padme Hum.
(PALIN) Om Mani Padme Hum.
(DUKER) Better karma. (PALIN) Yes.
In the town of Yushu with Duker.
We're looking at what's for sale on the street.
Some of the things are very valuable,
including coral, possibly because they're so far from the sea.
What's the significance of the colour of the coral?
- If it's a red, deep red... - Deep red.
...then it's better quality. - Right.
- You see? - That's paler, so that's not so expensive.
That's a cheaper one.
She's got some on her earring as well. Is that coral?
(SPEAKS TIBETAN)
So is this like a... a status symbol?
Carrying your wealth around? All this must be...
- Yeah. - How much is one of those worth?
- 1,000 yuan. - 1,000?
That's about $100 and there must be, what, 30?
So that's $5,000 or something just around your neck.
You're a woman of substance. Is this to sell or to show how successful she is?
- Yeah, it's just for show, to sell. - It is to sell? Yeah.
To sell.
Coral, rather than anything else, which is valuable in Tibet, is it?
- More than gold? - It's more expensive than gold.
- What is that? Is that gold? - That's gold.
(PALIN) Gold, with coral inside. That's an expensive number, that is.
I want to see a few more before I decide. Can you tell her that?