Gyantse

Historic Tibetan town at 4,040m on the Lhasa-Shigatse road. Pelkor Chode Monastery and the 9-tiered Kumbum Stupa are the Tibet route's photographic centrepiece.

Gyantse sits in the Nyangchu Valley between Lhasa and Shigatse. Historically a major commercial centre on the trade route between Tibet and India via Sikkim, the town retained its medieval character into the 20th century — substantial parts of the old Tibetan domestic architecture survive.

Pelkor Chode Monastery (1418 CE) is the major site. The Kumbum (literally '100,000 images') — a 9-tiered stupa with 76 chapels and surviving 15th-century murals throughout — is the only intact Tibetan-style stupa-with-chapels structure remaining. Climbing the Kumbum from base to top, examining each chapel's painted scenes, is among the most-rewarding monastery experiences in Tibet.

The Gyantse Dzong (Fortress) overlooks the town from a hilltop, the site of the 1904 British military expedition's siege.