Pelkor Chöde monastery,
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China
Pelkor Chöde monasteryVisited: April 2007 More pictures of Pelkor Chöde monastery:
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The day before, I had seen the great way Pelkor Chöde monastery is nestled against a hill, with a Thangka wall behind it, effectively creating a protected bowl. In it, Pelkor Chöde monastery, founded in the early 15th century, combined three different orders of Tibetan buddhism, which in itself makes it a special monastery. Of the three, the dominant order was the Gelugpa order. The impact of the Chinese invasion in 1959 can easily be seen when comparing the current state of the monastery with old pictures. The courtyard around the main buildings, the enormous Kumbum and the assembly hall, is largely empty now.
After entering, I resisted the temptation to continue straight into Gyantse Kumbum, and climbed to the Thangka wall instead. The reddish wall runs all around the ridge of the hill behind the monastery compound. Quite a steep walk quickly took me to the wall, and when I turned around, I was very glad I had come. Below me, I had a great view not only on the Kumbum, but also the straight street leading to Gyantse Dzong or fortress. When I climbed one of the buildings integrated into the wall, I could see on the other side, where I spotted more, obviously much smaller, temples. 
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.
