The Annual and Most Lively ‘Bathing Festival’ in Tibetan Yaxiing, a Fashionable Event
If saying where in Tibet’s hot springs are most famous, it must be Yaxiing (Yaxiing Town), located 91.8 kilometers northwest of Lhasa, Tibet, in the territory of Dangxiong County. Many people who come to Tibet will definitely come here to experience the characteristics of high-altitude hot springs, and its history spans a thousand years.
Due to the flat hotan land in this area, with an average altitude of 4300 meters, and the peaks on both sides reaching altitudes of 5500-6000 meters, it has formed a unique geothermal resource advantage. Over a thousand years, it has also formed a unique hot spring bathing custom. It is said that every late summer and early autumn, Lhasa, Dayi, Shanan and other places in Tibet will hold the annual most lively and extraordinary ‘bathing festival’.
As early as over a thousand years ago, the people living here discovered the therapeutic effects of hot springs. In the late 8th century, the founder of Tibetan medicine, Utzundun, in his Tibetan medical ‘Four Parts of the Canon’, discussed the therapeutic effects of hot springs, realistically depicting the medical effects of hot springs, which influenced local living habits.
If just going to Yaxiing is just to see the scenery, that’s a mistake. In fact, coming here is not just to see the scenery, but mainly to experience the hot spring bathing in the high-altitude region, washing away dust and fatigue, when the facilities were not so good, there were very simple and crude hot spring pools, but they were very attractive.
Now, Yaxiing has a new ‘Blue Heaven Yaxiing Geothermal Hot Spring Resort’, which not only includes indoor swimming pools, outdoor swimming pools and indoor small hot spring pools, but the environment has also changed greatly. The cost of bathing in hot springs varies, but when bathing in hot springs in the high-altitude region, you should not be too fatigued and should not stay too long.
Looking at these hot springs, with rippling waves and the lake surface steaming with heat, like a wispy mist, especially in the evenings in autumn and winter, it is very comfortable. And when the temperature in winter drops below -20 degrees Celsius, the hot water here remains 45 to 65 degrees Celsius, bathing and swimming has become a very fashionable activity, which is an important factor in the continuation of the bathing festival.
When leaving Yaxiing after bathing in hot springs, you saw the most beautiful time in Yaxiing, that is the morning in Yaxiing. Because the air is still relatively cold, the Yaxiing geothermal field is always filled with white mist, like a fairyland, leaving a deep impression.
Following the 318 National Highway, in autumn, it is the best time, the scenery in the distance is obviously layered, you can see it is a very magnificent natural landscape.
On the world’s third pole, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, here is the famous modern building – Walker’s Black Tent, at an altitude of 4300 meters, backed by the 7100-meter Nyenchen Tanggula Main Peak, with changeable weather, even breathing is a little difficult. However, for the tourists who are rushing to and fro on the highway, they can eat a meal and rest here, and then continue their journey.
The scenery in the distance is still the same, looking at the changes along the way from Yaxiing, you can see snow mountains in the distance, from hot springs to the magnificent natural landscapes is indeed a pleasure, that is an indescribable romantic feeling.
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