Eight kilometres outside Lhasa lies Drepung, the city's other great Gelugpa monastery. Over 10,000 monks lived here before the Cultural Revolution and Chinese takeover in 1951, making it the largest monastery in Tibet and one of the largest in the world. Only 600 monks live here now.
The word Drepung means 'rice heap' and refers to the large number of white monastic buildings piled up on the hillside. The buildings containing chapels and meditation halls are connected by steep staircases or wooden ladders. It takes some effort to reach them. Inside are gold Buddhas, thangpas, scriptures and lacquered walls. Photography is allowed here but for a charge of about 20 Yuan for each chapel.
The huge scale of the monastery means it takes at least three to four hours to visit the main areas. A few nuns live around the monastery. Our guide takes us into the humble house of one of them. She has a photo of the Dalai Lama hidden under a veil.
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