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 Tibet on the China Travel Blog

Lake Yamdrok-tso (Yangzhuoyong Hu 羊卓雍錯) presents itself to most visitors as a gloriously vivid turquoise-blue apparition glimpsed as their bus or tour van turns the bend on the old highway linking Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse, nearly 4,800 meters above sea level.

Jaws drop, eyes are rubbed, photos compulsively snapped: Yes, it's real... it really does glow in midday sun amidst the bleak Tsang Province's dun summer mountainscape like an otherworldly gem. No wonder it's one of Tibet's four holy lakes.

Nor is it difficult to see why this astonishingly beautiful body of water is believed to be the earthly home of the Buddhist reincarnation of Dorje Pakmo ("The Diamond Sow"), the third-ranking figure in Tibetan Lamaism after the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. Dorje Pakmo's female incarnation is head of Samding Monastery, which sits on a peninsular hilltop overlooking Yamdrok-tso some ten kilometers east of Nangartse, home to a rare co-ed mix of nuns and monks.

Nangartse is the nearest town to the lake of any significance. About a 30-minute drive or two-hour hike from the eastern reaches of Yamdrok-tso, this scruffy little town provides the best base of operations for exploration of the area, whether by vehicle or by foot, as a number of small guest houses, restaurants and shops serve both tourists and pilgrims who have come to walk around the lake in honor of Dorje Pakmo.

The Y-shaped extent of Yamdrok-tso stretches some 72 km (45 miles) to the east from Samding Monestary, comprising a convoluted body of water cut by numerous steep-walled inlets and bays tracing the rugged Himalayan topography, dotted by a dozen-some small islands, and surrounded by patches of rather treacherous bogland. 

A major haven for migratory birds, Yamdrok-tso is a bird-watcher's dream during Tibet's brief respite from the long winter. From April to Ocotber, when the waters have fully thawed, the lake supplies fresh-water fish to local markets as far away as Lhasa and herdsman graze their animals on several of the larger islands (and, as in the photo above, yaks in colorful yak-garb pose for tourists). 

Note that Yamdrok-tso is not all picturesque monks, landscapes, wildlife and pilgrims—in 1997, the Chinese government initiated operation of a power station that generates hydroelectric energy from the lake's waters. Lake waters are drawn down by gravity through an artificial bore driven through bedrock to drive turbines that generate power for much of the region, including Lhasa.

As with many other aspects of Tibetan-Chinese relations, the power station is not without controversy, as it poses an environmental threat by drawing down the lake's water level on one hand, and is an affront to the lake's sacred role in Tibetan culture on the other. One can only hope that the prophecy that states that the day the lake's water's disappear, Tibet will cease to sustain life never comes to pass.