A trip to Yamdrok Lake, where your body is in hell but your eyes are in heaven.

🔶🔹Yamdrok Lake (Tibetan: ཡར་འབྲོག་གཡུ་མཚོ།, English: Yamzho Yumco), also known as Yang Lake, means "the jade lake of the upper pasture" in Tibetan. It is located in Shannan City, Tibet Autonomous Region, about 70 kilometers southwest of Lhasa, with a lake surface elevation of 4,441 meters. Yamdrok Lake is one of the three largest sacred lakes in Tibet, along with Namtso and Mapang Yumco. The lake has an area of 638 square kilometers. The lake was formed by a glacial debris flow that blocked the river about a billion years ago. Later, due to the shrinkage of the lake water, it became an endorheic lake and was divided into several small lakes, forming more than 10 small islands. Its water source comes from the snow water of the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains around it. Although there is no outlet, the dynamic balance is formed by the evaporation of nature and the inflow of snow water. Yamdrok Lake is very irregular in shape, with many branches and winding lake shores. The lake basin includes three small lakes: Kongmu Lake, Chen Lake, and Bajiu Lake. The lake has a plateau temperate semi-arid monsoon climate, and the overall landform is an east-west basin. The Ningjin Gangsha Peak and the Karola Glacier stand on the west bank of the lake. The Yamdrok Lake basin is dominated by plains and hilly landforms, with submerged plants, small floating leaf plants and other aquatic plants growing, and it is also a habitat for various water birds such as swans, yellow ducks, and bar-headed geese, and fish such as plateau naked carp and heterocaudal plateau loach. Yamdrok Lake is a natural scenic area integrating plateau lakes, snow-capped mountains, islands, pastures, religions, water conservancy, wild animals and plants, temples and other landscapes. There are scenic spots such as Ritu Temple and Sedo Island in the scenic area. About 100 kilometers south of Lhasa, about 2 hours' drive, you need to cross the Gangbala Pass at an altitude of about 4,990 meters. You can charter a car or take a bus to get there.