Shigatse, the final destination of my road trip from Lhasa, isn’t big, but it is the second largest town in Tibet.  The main attraction here is the Tashilhunpo Monastery, seat of the Panchen Lama, the second holiest figure in Buddhism.

The monastery houses this 27-meter-high statue of the Maitreya Buddha.  The photographs in front of the statue are past reincarnations of the Panchen Lama; appearing on the far right is the current one, appointed by the Chinese government.  He recently left Tibet to be with the Dalai Lama in India - on sabbatical, according to the Chinese government.

The monastery itself is over 500 years old and rivals those around Lhasa in size.  However, where 5,000 monks used to live here, their numbers are now in the hundreds.

Another view of the monastery rooftops.  Shigatse has little to offer as a town, but a number of better hotels have recently been built, and surprisingly I found the stay here much more comfortable than in Lhasa.

A courtyard in the monastery, with mountains looming behind the structure.  Unlike the Potala Palace, the Tashilhunpo Monastery is not located on high ground overlooking the city; the approach is fairly flat, with only hoards of Tibetan women selling trinkets to navigate through.

School was in session near the entrance to the monastary.  Later this day the tour bus traveled many hours back to Lhasa along a fairly new road called the Friendship Highway.  However, the road, which is not well paved and travels along cliffsides, is not quite so friendly; along the way we saw a bus lying at the bottom of a ravine, where nearly 20 people had been killed two days earlier when their similar bus ran off the road.  The tour guide said it was not an unusual occurance.  And so ended my trip to Tibet.