Tsetang Hot Springs

Tsetang Hot Springs is a geothermal bathing destination in the Shannan (Lhoka) prefecture of Tibet, near the town of Tsetang (Zedang) in the Yarlung Valley—the cradle of Tibetan civilization, where the legendary first Tibetan king Nyatri Tsenpo descended from heaven, where the first Tibetan castle of Yumbu Lagang was built, and where the first agriculture, first domesticated animals, and first Buddhist scriptures in Tibet are said to have appeared, making this valley the mythological and historical foundation of an entire civilization. The bicarbonate-enriched thermal waters of Shannan draw from the geothermal activity of the Gangdisê and Nyainqêntanglha mountain ranges, providing warm mineral bathing in a landscape where the Yarlung River's fertile valley floor, the Samye Monastery (Tibet's first Buddhist monastery, built in 779 CE), and the Tomb of the Tibetan Kings at Chongye create one of the densest concentrations of Tibetan historical memory in any single river valley. Soaking in Tsetang's thermal waters within sight of the royal tombs and the valley where Tibetan civilization began offers a bathing experience of civilizational profundity, where the geothermal heat of the Tibetan plateau warms bathers at the very source of one of Asia's greatest cultures.