Tibet Trek from Shalu Monastery to Nartang Monastery

Tibet is a place enveloped by strong religious atmosphere. Once you arrive there, you will be deeply attracted by those devout believers who are walking around a temple while turning a prayer wheel in their hand or muttering prayers, or even prostrating forward, or just kowtow in front of the temples. But if you want to know more about them, you should do the religious trek as they do.  There are many famous religious treks in Tibet, such as Ganden to Samye trek, Shalu to Narthang trek and Mount Kailash Kora. 

These treks always start at a sacred temple and then end at another holy temple, or just round a holy mountain or lake in Tibet. Let’s take the Tibet trek from Shalu Monastery to Nartang Monastery.

Shalu is a small monastery 22km south of Shigatse in Tibet. It was founded in 1040 by Chetsun Sherab Jungnay, one of Tibet's greatest scholars and teacher about Buddhism scriptures. 'Shalu' means 'new bud' in Tibetan Language. According to the legend, its founding involves Chetsun and his teacher. His teacher suggested that Chetsun shoot an arrow, and found a monastery where the arrow hit. The flying arrow hit a new bud, hence the monastery’s name.

It was the first of the major monasteries to be built by noble families of the Tsang Dynasty during Tibet's great revival of Buddhism, and was an important center of the Sakya tradition. It was renowned as a centre of scholarly learning and psychic training for centuries.

Narthang Monastery is located 15km west of Shigatse. It was one of the four great monasteries of Tsang. The other three are Shalu, Sakya and Tashilhunpo. Nartang was first famous for its scriptual teaching and monastic discipline. After the fourteenth century it gained great eminence as the oldest of Tibet's three great printing centres (the other being the Potala and the Derge).

On the trekking route, there is another monastery called Ngor that conducts advanced annual Vajrayana rituals and ceremonies, attracting monks and nuns from India, Nepal, Ladakh and other countries.

This trekking in Tibet begins at the historic Shalu Monastery and traverses west over a couple of small ranges to Ngor Monastery. From Ngor it is a downhill slog to Nartang Monastery. It is about a ten hours walk to Ngor from Shalu, which is best divided into two days and another five hours from there to Nartang. The best time to trek in Tibet is from April to the end of October.