doweshowbellyad0 lhasa no other land has been transformed so completely as that of tibet particularly after the dalai lama went into exile in 1959 renowned but forbidden places like the potala palace left and the norbulingka summer palace have been opened to the public clusters of ninestorey high concrete buildings have risen completely changing lhasas landscape wide avenues have come up where there were carttracks and on them zoom the latest fourwheeldrive vehicles from japan europe and the us now being built in chinaafter a forced overnight halt in chengdu the gateway to lhasa due to aircraft trouble this correspondent arrived in tibets capital last thursday after a gap of 50 years on the china airlines airbus 340 all the 400odd seats had been taken the copassengers were 90 per cent chinese most of them visiting this part of the country for the first time after the previous nights rain white clouds hung low over lhasa valley as the plane landed at gonggar airport the air was crystal clear and the treeless hills around the city were just sprouting a mantle of green grassthe airport buildings still wore camouflage colours reminiscent of some 45 years ago when the dalai lamas americantrained guerrillas came to blow up this airport of the 10000 guerrillas those that parachuted down to destroy chinese army camps convoys newlybuilt roads bridges and other installations and reinstall the dalai lama were killed by chinese troops at the airport we were greeted by a giant hoarding put up by a canton construction company that has arrived to take up work in the tibet autonomous region chinese leaders have been urging the more prosperous chinese provinces and companies to take their capital equipment and skills to tibet several have taken up the invitation chinese deputy foreign minister shen guofang told tnn in beijing that the chinese government has itself invested 60 billion rs 50000 crore in tibet and would continue to do so at the rate of 10 billion every 10 yearsgonggar airport is 100 km south of lhasa driving to the capital we saw the mighty tsangpo which becomes brahmaputra in india it has large islands in the middle though none quite as large as our own majuli in assam in the villages along the way the mudbrick walls of the old houses were crumbling and new singlestorey homes coming up farmers were harvesting barley and fields of flowering mustard stretching far into the horizon as if to assert tibets rich yellow religious colour hardly anyone wore sheepskin or long woollen robes or bakhu instead these have been replaced by hats jackets