I visited Lhasa and the Potala Palace in August 2017. The Potola Palace was the residence of the Dalai Lama from the 17th century until the current Dalai Lama fled to India during the 1959 Tibetan uprising. During the Cultural Revolution, Tibet's monasteries were destroyed with dynamite and artillery and rare books and paintings were burned. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, nearly all of Tibet's 6,000 religious monasteries, temples and shrines had been looted, damaged or destroyed. Yet, Zhou Enlai, China's then Premier, personally intervened to ensure that the Potola Palace was not destroyed. I also visited Norbulingka, the traditional summer residence of successive Dalai Lamas from the 18th century until the current Dalai Lama exiled in 1959, and Chagpo Ri Rock Carvings, where more than 5,000 painted rock carvings of Buddhist images have been created over a millennium. I stayed at House of Shambhala in Lhasa's old town (http://www.shambhalaserai.com/html/House-of-shambhala-1.html), and my favorite meal was yak steak at Tibet Steak House. While I prefer to travel independently, western tourists are required to make Tibetan arrangements through a tour operator. I worked with Explore Tibet (http://www.exploretibet.com), and while Tibetan travel is more than twice as expensive as it would be if tourists were permitted to travel independently, my guide performed one valuable service in that he waited more than four hours to procure a ticket to visit the Potola Palace, where the interior rivals the magnificence of the exterior.