Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The monastery is still graced by surrounding juniper forest, said to have sprouted from the
hairs of its founder Dromtompa. A pleasant 40-minute kora leads up from the old guest-
house around the monastery ruins, passing several stone carvings, a series of eight
chörtens and an active sky-burial site.
At the kora's highest point a side trail branches 25 minutes up the hillside to the
drub-
khang
(meditation retreat) where Tsongkhapa composed the Lamrim Chenmo (Graduated
Path), a key Gelugpa text.
Samtenling Nunnery
BUDDHIST, NUNNERY
A pleasant hour-long (2.5km) walk northeast of Reting leads to the village-like Samtenling
Nunnery, home to more than 140 nuns. The main chapel houses a meditation cave used by
Tsongkhapa; to the right is his stone footprint and a hoofprint belonging to the horse of the
protector Pelden Lhamo. The trail branches off to the nunnery from the sky-burial site to
the northeast of the monastery.
Sleeping
Reting Monastery Guesthouse
GUESTHOUSE
(dm new/old bldg ¥70/40)
The monastery actually operates two guesthouses. The new building has overpriced con-
crete rooms arranged around an often-noisy teahouse-bar where construction workers go to
watch TV after their shift. The old guesthouse offers simple mud-walled rooms and basic
meals but is actually more pleasant, despite the fact there's only one squat toilet (which
doesn't even have a door!).
Getting There & Away
Getting to Reting has been made considerably more difficult in recent years by the con-
struction of the huge Phongdo reservoir. Vehicles now have to make a 50km detour by
heading west along the road to Damxung, doubling back at the Rinphu Bridge along the
north side of the reservoir and then swinging north into the Reting Valley.
From Reting it is 74km to Talung and 100km to Damxung. A dirt road leads north over
the mountains from a signed junction 11km southwest of Reting, to join the main
