Tibet: Drepung Monastery
And the last and perhaps the grandest monastery in Tibet – the Drepung Monastery. Set at the foot of a mountain, it overlooks the entire city of Lhasa below it. It was founded in 1416 and was the seat of the first five Dalai Lamas (then the nearby Potala Palace was built). Drepung is the largest Bhuddist Monastery in the world by size and one time had more then 10,000 monks living here (now the numbers are significantly smaller, since the Chinese administration imposed quotas). It takes nearly a day to explore all of it – 3 grand temples, multiple colleges and monks dorms – it’s an active monastery and you explore it with thousands of pilgrims most caring yak butter or spinning prayer wheels. An ultimata Tibetan cultural immersion!
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