Guge Kingdom Ruins

The Guge kingdom ruled western Tibet from the tenth century and was a centre of Buddhist revival, bringing scholars from India and building temples with murals unlike anything elsewhere on the plateau. Its capital at Tsaparang is a ridge of soft clay honeycombed with several hundred rooms, caves, tunnels and defensive works rising some three hundred metres, with chapels at the top reached through a passage cut inside the rock. The kingdom collapsed in the 1630s and the site was left. The White and Red temples retain wall paintings in remarkable condition. Around it, the Zanda basin is eroded into a vast clay badland.

What you actually see

• The honeycombed ridge - hundreds of chambers and tunnels in clay.
• The White and Red temples - chapels retaining Guge-period murals.
• The interior passage - the cut tunnel climbing to the summit chapels.
• The Zanda earth forest - eroded clay badlands around the site.

When to go

May to October, when the roads through western Tibet are open; winter is severe and access unreliable. Low sun on the badlands at either end of the day is the best light.

Honest expectations

This is one of the most remote destinations in China, requiring permits and days of driving. Murals are dim and photography inside is prohibited. The climb through the ridge is steep at 3,800 metres.

Nearby

Tholing monastery lies in Zanda; Kailash is east.