Welcome to Guge Kingdom
The barren, eroded landscape around modern Zanda is unlike any in Tibet, and seems an improbable location for a major civilisation to have developed. Yet the ancient Guge kingdom (གུ་གེ་རྒྱལ་རབ་, 古格王国, Gǔgé wángguó) thrived here as an important stop on the trade route between India and Tibet. Today the remains of Thöling Monastery, once a major centre of Tibetan Buddhism, and neighbouring Tsaparang, a 9th-century fortress etched into the very stone of a towering ridge, are two of Ngari’s highlights, though few Western tourists manage to make it this far.