Picture of Pelkor Chöde monastery with Gyantse Kumbum (Gyantse, China)

Sunlight over Pelkor Chöde monastery

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Pelkor Chöde monastery is home to the famous Gyantse Kumbum, largest stupa of Tibet. Otherwise, the views from the Thangka wall and the chapels in the assembly hall will keep you busy for a couple of hours.
After enjoying the view for a while, made more beautiful by wonderfully shaped clouds rolling in, I first visited the assembly hall. It was quite busy with both tourists and Tibetans, and offered dark chapels with statues, and pilgrims topping up the yak butter lamps. The Gyantse Kumbum was calling, however, so I went to the large white building with the gold spiral top. The stupa, or chörten, is supposed to have 108 chapels on its four floors - 108 being a sacred number for Tibetan buddhists. Each chapel is uniquely decorated with murals, some with statues. Especially the murals looked magnificent to me. For Tibetan pilgrims, walking up the stupa and visiting the chapels equals walking up a Tantric path. When I got out of the top floor, I found myself under one of the peaceful set of eyes staring from the tower of the stupa to the distance. From here, I had a nice view over the paintings on the ceiling below the golden dome above me.
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