Gyantse-Kumbum

The two main Tibetan cities, Lhasa and Shigatse have a large segment of Han population, entire quarters and business areas being exclusively Chinese. But traveling in Tibet you keep hearing about Gyantse, a town where there are no Chinese, the last Tibetan town. We wanted to stop here and get a glimpse of a Tibet before the massive Han colonization started to happen and I can say that somehow we found it in Gyantse.Gyantse was traditionally considered to be the third largest city in Tibet. But when you walk its main street or even when you watch the main square you get the feeling of a mere larger village.The city could be found on the Tibetan map in the 14th century. On a map of 1440 the entire religious complex is represented with all the religious structures that are now in place……The most important building in Gyantse is the Kumbum and it’s worth coming here just to see it. The Kumbum is an original structure. Similar structures existed before but they were destroyed by the fury of the Cultural Revolution and only one remained beside Gyantse nowadays in Tibet. The Kumbum is a pyramidal structure commissioned by a Gyantse prince in 1427 and organized on six floors accessed by an interior staircase. On each floor there are lots of chapels full of statues, many of them destroyed today, the name Kumbum meaning literally “100000 images”