Ganden Monastery

Ganden Monastery – honestly hard to describe! A special highlight and the most impressive monastery of our three-week tour – a place wild and majestic, about an hour’s drive from Lhasa, situated in the mountains at around 4200 meters elevation, a contrast between altitude and history. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, it was completely destroyed; almost all of the 6000 religious temples, monasteries, or buildings were demolished then, and many monks were killed — only 13 buildings supposedly remained intact, raw and tragic.

Reconstruction and Views

Today, about 300 monks live on the site again and are rebuilding everything with great attention to detail — but only 30 of the 200 buildings have been restored so far. It’s hard to imagine how massive and grand it once was. With friendly permission from the Chinese army, we climbed the nearby mountain — the 300 meters of elevation made us feel the effects of the thin air after about two weeks, a spectacle of effort and admiration. The view from above is hard to put into words; “breathtaking” fits in more ways than one — I can only convey it partially in the pictures here.