Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival 2014

Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival 2014 - Celebration

The Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival 2014 was celebrated between August 16th and 20th in 2014. Dama means "horse racing and arechery" in Tibetan. With a history of more than 600 years, the Dama Festival is a traditional Tibetan festival which would be celebrated in August every year.

It is reported that the celebration of Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival lasted 5 days between August 16th and 20th. Traditional Tibtan sports programs, such as archery performance, horse racing, yak racing and stone-carrying were taken in to the celebration of the Dama Festival. Gyangtse Dama Festival was listed as one of the state-level intangible cultural heritages and national folk festivals in 2008.

Except for the Gyangtse Dama Festival, there is a series of other traditional folk customs in Tibet, such as the Tibetan New Year Festival, Wangkor Festival, Shoton Festival, Bathing Festival and Nagqu Horse Racing Festival. These traditional festivals were greated introduces to visitors and keeps attracting tourists from different corners of the world.

Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival 2014 - Palkhor Monastery

Located in eastern Shigatse, Gyantse County is situated on the uppera reaches of Nianchu River. Tourists planning to visit Gyangtse during the celebration of the Dama Festival could also pay a visit to the famous Palkhor Monastery. It was constructed in 1427 and the whole construction of this magnificent monastery spent ten years. Palkhor Monastery is a typical tower-monastery architecture with special Tibetan Buddhism characteristics. It is also a monastery integrated different religion culture. Buddhas enjoy high status in Gelug Sect, Sakya Sect and Kadam Sect were enshrined in Palkhor Monastery and there are numerous pilgrims would come here for worshipping on the important religious days. The admission ticket of Palkhor Monastery is CNY60 for each visitor and it will be opened to tourists between 9:00a.m. and 16:00p.m. All year around.

Gyantse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival 2014 - Accommodation

The number of visitors in Gyantse during the celebration of Dama Festival is much larger compared to the other seasons. And the hotels in the county seat is in large demand in the high season. Not as big as Shigatse City or Lhasa City, there is a few choices in hotels for tourists willing to stay overnight in Gyantse. It should be noted that there is no 4-star hotel in Gyantse so far and visitors could only rest in the 3-star hotel or guesthouses currently. For visitors has high demand in accommodation, it is a better choice to keep moving to Shigatse after visiting the highlights in Gyantse. There accommodation condition in Shigatse is much better than Gyantse.

After the celebration of the Gyangtse Dama Cultural Tourism Festival, the annual Shoton Festival will be celebrated on August 25th in Lhasa. Tourists have a long vacation in Tibet could explore the traditional Tibetan folk customs from various celebration activities.