Odoric set out on his travels about 1318, and his journeys embraced parts of India, the Malay Archipelago, China and even Tibet, where he was the first European to enter Lhasa, not yet a forbidden city.
Outside the Forbidden City the most noteworthy building is the Temple of Heaven, which stands in the outer or Chinese city.
In addition, after making careful inquiry through various commissions, he reformed the systems of education and police, laid down a comprehensive scheme of irrigation, improved the leave rules and the excessive report-writing of the civil service, encouraged the native princes by the formation of the Imperial Cadet Corps and introduced many other reforms. His term of office was also notable for the coronation durbar at Delhi in January 1903, the expedition to Lhasa in 1904, which first unveiled that forbidden city to European gaze, and the partition of Bengal in 1905.
We spend three days guided sightseeing in Lhasa, acclimatizing to the altitude of the Forbidden City.
True, the Forbidden City 's low-rise façade seems dwarfed by the skyscrapers now vying for space on the Beijing skyline.
