At the east end of the 2km-long town, walk through the Tibetan quarter to reach a mass of mani stones, prayer poles and yak skulls that local pilgrims gravitate to daily at dusk. From here you’ll see a second, larger collection of prayer flags and mani stones about 1km away on the plateau to the north; just below here is the Mendong Monastery, a small but friendly place with 36 monks.
The atmospheric inner chapel of the main prayer hall holds the funeral chörten of local lama Sherab Rinpoche, plus his stone hand and footprints. The monastery belongs to the Kagyud school, so there are pictures of Milarepa, Marpa and the Karmapa here (as well as Chairman Mao!). The monastery is headed by an 91-year-old lama who fled to India in 1959 and returned in 1984 to rebuild the ruined monastery.
