Western Tibet (Ngari) - Tibet - page 380

Palace. The rooms were built 12m underground in order to conserve warmth, and the east-
ern rooms have windows that open out onto the cliff-face.
There are seven dusty chambers, all empty, linked by a cramped corridor. Branching off
from the stairs you will see a dim passage that provided vital access to water during sieges
and served as an emergency escape route for the royal family. The easily missed stairs to
the Winter Palace lead down from between the Summer Palace and the Mandala
(Demchok) Lhakhang. Don't go down if you're prone to vertigo or claustrophobia.
Other Sights
North of the main entrance to Tsaparang a trail follows a green river valley down about
700m to a cave ( GOOGLE MAP ) on the left that holds the mummified remains of several
bodies. On the way back, visit the chörten and ruined chapel of the Lotsang Lhakhang (
GOOGLE MAP ) . Only the feet of the main statue remain. Also worth a quick visit are the
caves ( GOOGLE MAP ) and chörtens to the west of the main site, near the public toilet be-
hind the caretaker's compound.
Dungkar & Piyang
The most important monastic communities in Guge were at Thöling and Tabo (in Ladakh)
but extensive cave paintings discovered in the early 1990s suggest others were of great
significance as well. The 12th-century wall paintings at remote Dungkar (4250m; N
31°40.638', E 079°49.471'), approximately 40km northeast of Zanda, are possibly the old-
est in Ngari. Their Kashmiri-Central Asian style ties them with the Silk Road cave murals
of Kizil in China (particularly in their almost-cartoon style, and the flying apsaras , painted
on a blue background). There are three main caves in a side valley before the main village,
of which the best preserved is the mandala cave. Lovely nearby Dungkar village also has a
ruined monastery above the town.
A few kilometres west, the village of Piyang (4180m; N 31°40.962', E 079°47.784') is
also worth the small detour. It lies at the foot of a large ridge honeycombed with thousands
of caves and topped with a ruined monastery and two caves with fine murals.
Entry to both Dungkar and Piyang are technically included in the ¥200 entry fee for
Thöling and Tsaparang, though the Piyang caretaker charges an extra ¥30 to enter the
caves there since no money from the ticket makes it to the village.