Xining city
Xining, known as Siling in Tibetan, is the start of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the gateway to the Amdo region of Tibet. Xining is the capital city of Qinghai Province and also main gate to travel overland to the remote region of Amdo and Kham places. There are many places you can visit in town but most of all, we recommend to visit Tibet Medical and Culture Museum. Taoism Temple at the bottom of North Mountain, Great Mosque, Kumbum Monastery just outside of town, Tibetan Carpet factory .etc.
Just outside the city are many famous monasteries, national parks, and nomadic grasslands worth visiting. most worth to see in Xining is Qinghai Tibetan Medical and Cultural Museum
Qinghai Tibetan Medical and Cultural Museum or Qinghai Tibet Cultural Museum was built in 2006. The purpose of this museum is to collect, preserve, display, and research the culture of Tibetan Medicine,Tibetan traditional culture and history overall.
The museum is located in the north skirt of the Xining city about 15-20 minutes by taxi from down town of Xining City. There are eight major exhibition halls, including the Art of Thangka Painting Hall, Tibetan Medicine History Hall, Tibetan Medicine Thangka and External Therapy Tools Hall, Tibetan Medicine Classical Literature Hall, Tibetan Medicine Specimen Hall, Tibetan Astrology/Astronomy Hall, Tibetan Cultural Hall, and Tibetan Calligraphy Hall. Besides these halls, there are a famous Tibetan Art painting or Thangka on the second floor of the museum which is highlight of the Museum. The initial preparations for the Great Thangka were made in 1980 by Mr. Tsong Sherabgyal, who began the rough sketch in 1990 and in 1996 began the actual painting of this Thangka. He invited over 400 Tibetan handicraftsmen and artists from all over Tibet to participate in this enormous creation, and they worked for over four years to complete the Thangka. The content of this giant painting includes Tibetan history, astrology, world formation, human creation, Tibetan Buddhism lineages, famous monasteries, temples, the story of Buddha, Tibetan Culture, the sciences of linguistics, technology, philosophy, poetry, rhetoric, and drama, the Tibetan architect Thangtong Gyelpo (Thang-stong-rgyal-po) ‘s condensed biography, a condensed version of the Tibetan epic ‘King Gesar’, Tibetan scenic and historical sites, seven wise ministers and seven strategic generals in Tibetan history, festivals and clothing, daily necessities, weapons, houses, tents, castles patterns including the eight auspicious symbols. etc. This is the largest Tibetan Thangka in the world with more than 618 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 1,000 kilograms in weight. It would take very long to go over all the details and exam of the painting contents. But a simple tourist visit would take 2-3 hours.
Kumbum Monastery
Kumbum in Tibetan means “Hundred Thousand Images of the Buddha”. It is one of the six greatest monasteries of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism and the birth place of Tsongkapa, the founder of the Gelugpa sect and Ganden monastery near Lhasa. Under request of the third Dalai Lama to build the monastery at the site where Tsongkapa’s birth place, Kumbum monastery was founded by Rinchen Tsundru Gyaltsen in 1583,. after dedicated efforts of many masters of high spiritual achievement who continuously devoted themselves to the renovation and expansion of the monastery, Kumbum monastery has developed into a group of monastic complex comprising numerous temples, assembly halls, stupas, monastic colleges and monks quarters, this monastic architecture has a unique combination of Tibetan and Chinese artistic style. In the history, it housed for more than five thousand monks and it has very systematic Buddhist teachings start from beginners to the Gyeshe(Scholar).
There are numbers of historical relics and large collection of Buddhist texts are well preserved in the monastery. Frescoes, embroidery and butter sculptures are regarded as three special arts in the monastery.
Kokonor Lake
Kokonor in Mongolian and Tso Ngon Po in Tibetan literally means Blue lake, and it gives Tso Ngon(Qinghai) as the name of the province. It is the largest saline lake in China and the wide-open shores of this saline lake provided rich pastures for both Tibetan and Mongol nomads. The lake sits at 3190m high and it is only abut 100km from the Xining, which is the capital of Qinghai province. By increasing the migrants around the lake shore has obviously impact natural beauties and wildlife in the region, intensive grazing and a spread of cultivation near the lake shore resulted degradation of wild live and native nomadic life.
In Tibetan Buddhism, the lake is associated with a mythical story of Princess Wencheng in 7th century and it is one of the holy lake in Tibet, every year, numbers of Tibetan pilgrims make their pilgrimage around the lake to accumulate merit and purify bad deeds. It takes about 8 day on horse and 15 days by foot to complete a circumambulation around the lake.
The recently built Qinghai-Tibet railway goes north of the lake but the road continues for over 100km on the south side through fields of yellow blossoms of rape seed and wheat. The fields of yellow rape in the summer attract large numbers of bee-keepers from the eastern provinces of China, and groups of hives are scattered all over the plains. Moreover, there are about 164 species of birds are identified around the lake as migrant birds stop here during the long migration journey.
Birds Island
At the western side of the lake is populated with different species of birds which is known as Birds Island. It is also known as bird sanctuaries of the Qinghai Lake Natural Protection Zone since 1997. There you will find bar-headed geese, gulls, terns and even sometimes black-necked crane on the island, and many other migrant species of birds can be seen in different season as the lake act as intermediate stop during the migration across Asia.
Labrang Monastery
Labrang monastery is located in Xiahe County in Gansu province, in the traditional Tibetan area of Amdo. It is currently the largest monastery on the Tibetan plateau and is a focal point of both local pilgrims and outsider travelers. It was founded by Jamyang Shipa Ngawang Tsundru in 1709 and rapidly grew to become one of the six great Gelukpa monasteries in Tibet. The main assembly hall was rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in 1985, but most of the other chapels survived in the Cultural Revolution relatively in recent years and some are spacious and confortable. Labrang acts as a major teaching centre and monks come from not only the 108 satellite monasteries scattered throughout nearby couties, but also from central Tibet and Mongolia too. Thus the number of monks is somewhat fluid. There is also a small nunnery and Nyingmapa sect temple on the corner of the complex.
Labrang monastery has six colleges and the largest college is Mayjung Thoisamling, for the study of sutra and debate, established by the First Jamyang-Shipa in 1710 when he founded the monastery in general. It awards the Geshey Thorampa degree. When the First Jamyang-Shipa received the Say lineage transmission at Saygyu Tantric College from Saygyu Konchog-yarpel (Srad-rgyud dKon-mchog yar-‘phel) (1602-1682), this great master asked him to establish a tantric college as part of the monastery he would found in Amdo in the future. Keeping this request in mind, the first Jamyang-Shipa established Maygyu Dratsang (sMad-rgyud Grva-tshang), Lower Tantric College, in 1719.
The Dhukor Dratsang or Kalachakra College, Ewam-chokor-ling (E-wam chos-‘khor gling), was founded in 1763 by the Second Jamyang-Shiypa, Konchog Jigme Wangpo (1728-1798), on the advice of the Third Panchen Lama, Pelden-yeshi (Pan-chen dPal-ldan ye-shes) (1738-1780). The Panchen Lama’s home monastery, Tashilhunpo, built a Kalachakra temple two years later, in 1765, devoted to the daily practice of the Kalachakra rituals. Since the first half of the eighteenth century, Kalachakra Colleges had already existed in Inner Mongolia. The first was at Ari-in Monastery, founded by the first Kanjurwa Gegen, Lozang-choden (bKa’-‘gyur-ba Blo-bzang chos-ldan), and the second at Badghar Monastery by his disciple, Dunkhor Pandita (Dus-‘khor Pandi-ta). The Dukor Datsang at Labrang was the first of its kind in Amdo.
The Menpa Dratsang or Medical College, Sorig-zhenpen-ling, was established in 1784, also by the Second Jamyang-zhaypa. The Kyedor Dratsang or Hevajra College, Sangngag-dargyay-ling, was started by the F\fourth Jamyang-Shiypa, Kelsang Thubten Wangchup or Upper Tantric College, Sangchen-dorjey-ling, was established in 1943 by the Fifth Jamyang-zhaypa, Lozang-jamyang-yeshey-tenpay-gyeltsen.
The two Tantric Colleges at Labrang, like their models in Lhasa, studied mostly the Guhyasamaja (gSang-‘dus), Chakrasamvara (bDe-mchog), and Vajrabhairava (rDo-rje ‘Jigs-byed) tantric systems. They awarded Geshe Karamapa (dGe-bshes bKa’-ram-pa) and Geshe Ngagrampa (dGe-bshes sNgags-ram-pa) degrees, as at the two Lhasa Tantric Colleges. The Kalachakra College was responsible for not only the Kalachakra rituals, but also those of Samvid (Kun-rig) and Vairochana Abhisambodhi (rNam-snang mngon-byang). The monks of the Kalachakra College also studied astronomy, astrology, and mathematics. In addition to medical studies, the monks of the Medical College were responsible for the rituals of the Medicine Buddha (sMan-lha), Akshobhya (Mi-‘khrugs-pa), and the Hiddenly Actualized (gSang-sgrub) form of Hayagriva (rTa-mgrin). The Hevajra College maintained the rituals for Hevajra and Vajrapani Mahachakra (Phyag-rdor ‘Khor-can), and prepared a calendar/almanac each year according to the Chinese-style black calculation system (nag-rtsis).
As at the Jokang (Jo-khang) in Lhasa, every year from the 3rd to the 17th of the first Tibetan month, Labrang held a Great Prayer Festival (sMon-lam chen-mo) with examinations for the highest grades of Geshe. At this festival, there were ritual masked dances and other rites as in Lhasa.
At its height in 1957, Labrang had nearly 4,000 monks. About 3,000 of them were at the Mayjung Tosamling College, with the rest evenly distributed among the other five colleges. Approximately three-quarters of the monks were Tibetans. The rest were mostly Outer Mongolian Mongols (phyi-sog), Inner Mongolian Mongols (smad-sog, nang-sog), Kokonor Mongols (stod-sog), Mongours (hor-pa) from northern Amdo, Yellow Yugurs (yu-gur) from Gansu (Kansu), Xinjiang Kalmyk Mongols, and ethnic Chinese. Labrang had 138 branch monasteries.
Starting in 1958, the monastery was closed for twelve years by the Chinese. During the 1970s, it was opened for tourism. It was reopened as a functioning monastery by the Seventh Panchen Lama, Chokyi-gyeltsen-trinley-lhundrub (Pan-chen Chos-kyi rgyal-mtshan ‘phrin-las lhun-grub) (1938-1989), in 1980. At present there are about 500 monks, divided among the six colleges in the same proportions as before. The study program is only a fraction of what it previously had been.
Amne Machen Mountains
The lofty range of the Anyemaqen Mountains is composed of 13 peaks, averaging 5,900 meters above sea level. Legend has it that living among these peaks are many mountain gods; wise, kind-hearted, and loving who protect the local people from evil spirits. Especially holy to Tibetans, Anyemaqen is attractive for its unique land formation, changeable climate, spectacular waterfalls, and various species of wild animals.
Takser
Amdo is the birth place of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. He was born in Taktser, Tibet, a fertile village set at the top of a mound and overlooking vast mountain ranges. The population has changed, but it’s still an interesting adventure. If it is not blocked off, it would be a delightful visit for those interested in Tibetan Buddhism
Rebkong – Tongren
Rebkong(Tib: རེབ་གོང/ cn: Tongren county) is 180km south of Qinghai Province, located in the Golden Valley of the Rongwu Guchu River in Malho or Huangnan Prefecture, The valley is at about 2600m(8500 feet) above sea-level, extends from the north to south, and is surrounded by several mountains. Rebkong is famous for it’s Tibetan traditional arts and cultural preservation. There are several monasteries and villages scattering around the Rongwu town which is home to hundreds of artist. The most well known villages and monasteries are Sanggeshung Yago and Sanggeshung Mago(upper and lower Wutun), Gomar Gompa, Nyamtok village.etc. If you are interested in learning Tibetan culture and Tibetan traditional arts, Rebkong is one of most recommended region. Almost every house turn into a artists studio. These unofficial school of art are inherited from 18th century. Many of the Tibetan arts you have seen in Amdo are produced by the masters of Rebkong region.
There are many monasteries stretches both side of the vally. There are Sanggeshung Yago( Upper Wutun), Sanggeshung Mago(Lower Wutun), Gomar Gompa, Nyantok Monastery, Yershong Gon, Tokya Tashi Chopenling, Yarma Tashikyil Gompa, Gartse Gompa. Most of them are the branch monasteries of Rongwu Gonchen. Rebkong or Malho Prefecture is one the major Tibetan town in Amdo both economically and politically. Rebkong has a diverse population of Tibetans, Chinese and Hui, among these ethnic groups, Tibetan population takes about 70% of whole region. The distance from Rebkong to Tsekog (nomadic regioin) 100km, to Gyantsa county 65km, to Zogdzong Mongolian Tibetan town 150km, to Labrang 110km. Rongwu Monastery རོང་བོ་དགོན་ཆེན, the largest monastery in Rebkong located at the south end of the town. The monastery is built in 1301 by Lama Samten Renchen. The Monastery has consist of several important temples and colleges. The main temples and buildings are The Great Sutra Hall, Main Assembly Hall, The Manjushri Hall.etc. Rongwu Monastery was a Sakyapa Monastery built in 12th century but later became a Gelug Pa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The monastery housed over 1500 monks at the power of it’s peak, however, there are still 400 monks in the monastery. The Amdo Rebkong Molam Festival in winter and Rebkong Shaman Festival in summer are two largest festivals in the region, which are considering as two of the biggest festivals in Amdo Tibet.