The best morning views of the monastery come from the Thangka Display Terrace, a popular picnic spot.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
0.76 MILES
With its succession of squeaking prayer wheels (3km in total), hawks circling overhead and the throb of Tibetan longhorns resonating from the surrounding…
0.88 MILES
Tucked away down the backstreets of Xiahe not far from Labrang Monastery, Snowland Art is a family-style fine art and handicrafts training school set up…
Milarepa Palace Buddhist Temple
26.23 MILES
A towering nine-storey layer cake of a temple, the Milarepa Palace is both deeply steeped in mystery and unusual in the Tibetan world as different…
0.3 MILES
With an interior splashed with murals and illuminated by a combination of yak-butter candles and electric lamps, the golden 31m-tall Gongtang Pagoda is a…
14.97 MILES
The Ganjia Grasslands, 34km from Xiahe, aren’t as pretty as those at nearby Sangke, but there is more to explore. From Xiahe a bumpy road crosses the…
7 MILES
Expanses of open grassland dotted with Tibetans and their grazing yak herds highlight a trip to the village of Sangke, 14km from Xiahe. Development has…
0.71 MILES
The three-storey Barkhang serves as the monastery’s traditional printing temple. With rows upon rows of more than 20,000 wood blocks for printing, it’s…
0.56 MILES
A repository of vivid and bright murals, the hall encapsulates a startlingly fierce 12m-high effigy of Hayagriva – a wrathful manifestation of the usually…
Nearby Gansu attractions
0.3 MILES
With an interior splashed with murals and illuminated by a combination of yak-butter candles and electric lamps, the golden 31m-tall Gongtang Pagoda is a…
0.42 MILES
This nunnery is on the hill above the Tibetan part of Xiahe. The outer kora (pilgrim path) begins just to the left of here.
0.5 MILES
Visit this small Nyingmapa (Red Hat) school monastery to catch a glimpse of lay monks who wear striking red and white robes and have long, braided hair…
0.56 MILES
A repository of vivid and bright murals, the hall encapsulates a startlingly fierce 12m-high effigy of Hayagriva – a wrathful manifestation of the usually…
0.59 MILES
What remains of this hermitage are earthen walls overgrown with nettles, making the real attraction here the view of the town nestled into the mountains…
0.71 MILES
The three-storey Barkhang serves as the monastery’s traditional printing temple. With rows upon rows of more than 20,000 wood blocks for printing, it’s…
0.76 MILES
With its succession of squeaking prayer wheels (3km in total), hawks circling overhead and the throb of Tibetan longhorns resonating from the surrounding…
0.88 MILES
Tucked away down the backstreets of Xiahe not far from Labrang Monastery, Snowland Art is a family-style fine art and handicrafts training school set up…