This monastery was originally built in 1830, about 20km from the present site. At the height of its splendour, there were seven temples and 1000 monks in residence, but the Stalinist purges of 1938 put a rather abrupt end to that. The new monastery, surrounded by a wall topped with 108 stupas and with strings of prayer flags aflutter, is about 400m west of the square. If you wander into the courtyard, during the warmer months, you may catch groups of crimson-robed monks chanting outside.
