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 (Tibetan: rGyal-rtse) sits in the Nyangchu Valley at 4,040 metres, roughly halfway between Lhasa and Shigatse on the southern route through Tsang. Historically one of Tibet's main trading towns — the route from Sikkim and British India passed through here — the town retained substantial medieval domestic architecture longer than most Tibetan settlements; portions of the old earthen-walled lanes survive alongside the monastery compound.

Pelkor Chode Monastery (1418 CE) is the defining site. The monastery complex itself is notable for having been built jointly by the Sakya, Gelugpa and Bodongpa schools at a time of sectarian coexistence unusual in Tibetan history. The Kumbum (literally 'hundred thousand images') — a nine-tiered chorten with 76 chapels stacked in diminishing tiers — is the only intact Tibetan stupa-with-chapel structure of its type remaining anywhere. Each chapel contains painted murals from the 15th century, largely intact, depicting mandalas and deity forms in dense iconographic programmes. Climbing from ground level to the eyes-of-the-stupa viewing tier takes around 30 minutes and passes through rooms that have seen virtually no restoration since their original construction.

The Gyantse Dzong (fortress) occupies the rocky hill above the town — the site of the 1904 British military expedition's siege and the subsequent occupation, documented in the Gyantse Battle Exhibition hall inside the dzong. Views from the battlements extend over the valley in three directions.