Often called “The Roof of the World,” the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, or known as the Tibetan Plateau stretches vast and high across Central Asia. Covering more than 2.5 million square kilometres, it rises to an average altitude of more than 4,500 meters, making it the highest and largest...
It may be hard to believe, but there still exists a mountain whose summit no climber has ever planted a conquering flag upon. People have crossed endless arid deserts with their caravans, hacked paths through the heart of jungles, reached the South Pole across frozen expanses,...
The highest peak in the Nalakankar Himal subrange of the Himalayas is Gurla Mandhata, also known as Naimona'nyi by the people of Xizang. Standing at 7700 meters, she overlooks the landscape around Lake Manasarovar and is the sister of its more illustrious brother, Mount Kailash. Kailash,...
Brahma visualizes the lake’s crystalline waters in his mind, then materializes it near Kailash as a symbol of spiritual purity and cosmic order. Buddhist pilgrims walk clockwise around Lake Manasarovar—the “Lake of the Mind”—seeking purification and the accumulation of merit. Practitioners of the ancient Bon religion,...
无尽寂寥远，纳尼照雍湖。雪岭冠中玉，光生净水珠。心起还成雾，念飘似絮浮。童指惊旋处，香云化不拘。 Endless stillness— the wide earth breathes.By Manasarovar’s calm expanse,Namo Nanyi leans from the sky,Her summit mirrored in the lake’s bright heart. A single jewel crowns the snow peaks,Light rippling through waters clear as air.My thoughts rise, then turn to mist;My mind drifts— soft as spun cloud,Weightless...
The Manla Water Reservoir Project is a large-scale infrastructure development in Shigatsu Prefecture, located on the Nianchu River, a tributary of the Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra) River, which receives water from nearly 100 glaciers. It is a multi-purpose project that provides irrigation for more than 40.000 hectares...
In this quiet, high valley, a single thread of melted snow slides down from the sacred mountains. Its clear flow breathes life into the land — a reminder that even the smallest movement of nature sustains everything. The settlement below, with its blue roofs aligned in...
The air is thin, the sun intense, and life vividly present in this Place of Gods. It is hard not to fall in love with Lhasa—and the best way is simply not to resist. The sounds, the flavours, the colours, the clear light in people’s...
On a street in Lhasa, I saw a woman braiding another woman's long black hair—her eyes bright, magnetic, her smile disarming. I stopped to photograph them. “Where are you from?” the woman with the electric gaze asked. “Romania.” “Where is Romania?” “In Europe—Eastern Europe.” “Ah, Europe! That is far away,”...
From the top of Red Hill (Marpo Ri), the Potala Palace—the former winter residence of the Dalai Lamas—rises above the landscape of Lhasa. The structure seen today, with more than 1,000 rooms across 13 stories, was largely built in the latter half of the 17th...