Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery in Shangri-la

 

Please compare these pictures with the ones supplied by Wikipedia

Referring to a city with the name of Shangri-la? Yes that’s possible. Shangri-la is a name too good not to be used. Shangri-la is the name of a fictive lamasery in Tibet, which James Hilton used in his novel “Lost Horizon”, published in 1931. Zhongdian County (中甸县) had been renamed into Shangri-la (Chinese:香格里拉市 and Tibetan: སེམས་ཀྱི་ཉི་ཟླ་གྲོང་ཁྱེར།) in 2001. It’s that easy. The city is growing rapidly and attracts a lot of Chinese tourists, but there are also foreign tourists using Shangri-la as a gateway to Tibet. I did so in 2009 and the pictures here have been taken in 2009.

Shangri-la is in Yunnan, but it is an old Tibetan region; and nowadays the region still has a lot of Tibetans living there.

Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery is a very new and a very old monastery. It had been founded in the 17^th century, but the progress in building has been done in recent years. Maybe to have a landmark like the Potala or the Thashilhunpo nearer to the Chinese heartland. 

Before getting to the monastery and the surrounding you had to get past a control point. We could drive through as our hotel was close to the monastery.

 Concrete works at the monastery in 2009

 

 

This plan had been on display in 2009

 

 

Lots of new (and well done) wall paintings

 

 

The great hall

 

 

Monks after praying - just like in the Tibetan heartland

I didn't fly, I just climbed up very high -

there's the monastery on one side of the ridge 

 

The other side of the ridge -

the city of Shangri-la lurking

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_City

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganden_Sumtseling_Monastery

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