Small Potala Temple & Panchen Lama Temple – Chengde

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Small Potala Temple & Panchen Lama Temple – Chengde

A new day and a new attitude. After an awful previous day health wise, I woke up with more energy and we went out to visit the monasteries of Small Potala Palace and Panchen Lama Temple. They are two of the Eight Outer Temples that surround the Mountain Resort area.

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Small Potala Palace, a replica of the Palace in Tibet

We arrived at the Potala Temple, better known as the Small Potala Palace, which was built between 1767 and 1771 and occupies 200,000m2, making it the biggest of the Eight Outer Temples.

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Family Travel Secret
The Small Potala Temple is a replica of Potala Palace, which is located in Lhasa (Tibet).

When we entered we walked through several entrances, with the Five Pagoda Entrance and its guardian elephants being particularly beautiful. Each of the pagodas is a different color, representing each of the elements of the universe (fire, water, earth, wind and void) and the five main sects of Buddhism.

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The following entrance is The Zhong Gang Hall which is beautiful in red and green and is guarded by two lions.

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After passing through all of these entrances we finally caught sight of the main building: the Great Red Platform that is located at the top of the mountain.

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More stairs to climb!! 🙂 🙂 All of these temples and palaces that we have visited have been a continuous sequence of steps, followed by passageways and corridors … Very good exercise.

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After crossing a patio and going down a corridor with some figures of Buddha and lots of lotus flowers we came across the Hall of Buddhist Doctrine Unifying in the center of the Red Platform, dedicated to Sakyamuni Buddha.

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We relaxed for a while in this hall, which is surrounded by three-story buildings, and enjoyed views of the surroundings from the top floor.

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Family Travel Secret
If you visit The Mountain Resort, don’t miss the opportunity to go up to the top of the mountain (taking the minibus that can get you there for 80 yuan per person, as of August 2016). The view from there to Potala Palace is simply mind-blowing.

 

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View of the Small Potala Palace from the Mountain Resort

We went back down all those steps that we had previously climbed and Noah gave us a photo shoot before we left the temple 🙂

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Leaving Small Potala and visiting the Temple of Sumeru Happiness and Longevity

After visiting the Potala Palace we headed for the Temple of Sumeru Happiness and Longevity, which is right next to it. This temple was built in 1780 for the visit of Panchen Lama VI to Chengde for the 45th anniversary of Emperor Qian Long.

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It was built so that Panchen Lama could live and perform his daily prayers. It occupies some 37,900m2. As is normal for the area, after some steps we found a special entrance, The Monumental Archway of Colored Glaze, which couldn’t be passed through by anyone lower class than nobles and lamas.

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The Monumental Archway of Colored Glaze entrance at the Temple of Sumeru Happiness and Longevity

Given that we are now in a different era, luckily, we were able to enter and admire the great red building which appeared in front of us.

We entered via some corridors and finally arrived at a central patio which has a building in the middle of it. Everything was red and gold – passageways full of images of Buddha, pagodas with their roofs guarded by dragons, etc.

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When we left the building we headed towards the Tower of Longevity and Colored Glaze. It is an octagonal tower with seven floors and 56 Amitayus Buddhas perched on it.

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When we came down we went towards the terrace of the main building, from where you can see the area with a bird’s eye view, as well as see the dragons that guard the roofs of the pagodas in more detail.

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We climbed down the whole mountain following the right-hand side of the Palace and exited via the Five Arches Stone Bridge with carved railings at the Xumifushou Temple.

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Our day ended having visited two more places and been to a hairdresser near our hostel.

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Next stop: Beijing … again 🙂

Important facts:
Small Potala Palace entrance ticket combined with the Temple of Sumeru Happiness and Longevity: 80 yuan per person. City bus: 2 yuan per person.

 

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