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Pala Manor

 
Pala Manor is 10mins  drive from Gyangtse. Pala, the former owner of the Manor, used to be an emirate for a tribe in Bhutan. He moved to Tibet and became a local officer during the civil war in Bhutan. At the time of the Tibet Democratic Reform in 1959 he left Tibet along with Dalai Lama to live in exile.
 
Before the Democratic Reform, the manor used to include twenty-two smallholdings, six lots of grassland and farmland that covered 1414 acres. More than 14,250 cattle were grazed here and 2,440 serfs worked here. The main tasks of the serfs were general farm labor, animal husbandry, wine production, etc. In addition many were engaged in knitting, sewing and the catering chores and other tasks necessary for the running of the estate. The peasantry with no freedom was treated harshly and suffered very poor living situation.
 
The Pala Manor remained still has fifty-seven houses on an estate with an area of approximately 5000 square meters (1.24 acres). The main building is a three-storey structure that includes a scripture hall, reception hall and bedrooms. In addition to the lobby used for playing the Chinese game of Majiang there are many other reception halls. The maze of rooms is richly decorated with exquisitely carved beams and painted rafters.
 
One would be genuinely amazed by what can be seen on display here, for many of the original contents of the reception rooms and bedrooms remain on show. Among the items there are an ox horn that would be filled with Qingke (a highland barley wine), fine porcelain bowls for containing ghee, an ivory Mah-jongg set as well as precious fur clothes, glass cups, tins of biscuits and whiskey imported from Britain. The sun-room walls are hung with tiger and deer skins and further evidence of the wealth of the former owner are such things as a gold saddle and two gramophones that were manufactured in Great Britain. The other recreation rooms include a modern gymnasium with facilities for table tennis, badminton and other physical training equipment including ice-skates.
 
There are other foreign imports ranging from mundane things such as soy sauce and vinegar to more elaborate items such as ivory fans, rock crystal glasses and wristwatches as well as a range of cosmetics that would have been used by Pala's womenfolk. There are a great many things on show that would have been luxuries some half century ago. The exhibits include many very valuable items of jeweler fashioned from sapphires, turquoise, rubies, agates, diamonds and various other precious stones. Such was the wealth that was taken for granted by the Pala family while elsewhere the visitor can see how the unfortunate peasants were treated. Manacles, instruments of torture including blackjacks and punishment cells are on view.
 

Nowadays, things are very different, as modern buildings have been erected around Pala Manor. The former serfs now reside in them living a happy life with their offspring. Their old shabby houses remain as relics of a cultural past. The people now breed their own cattle, horses and sheep, something they could never have dreamed of just fifty years ago.

Entrance Fee: 30RMB-pp
Opening Time: 9:00-18:00
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