Drak Yerpa is a cluster of meditation caves and chapels carved into a limestone cliff thirty kilometres east of Lhasa. Padmasambhava, the Indian master who brought tantric Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century, is said to have meditated here, as did the Bengali sage Atisha three centuries later. King Songtsen Gampo's consorts retired here for contemplation. Even by the standards of Tibetan sacred geography, the density of associations is high.
What you see today is mostly post-1980 reconstruction, but the setting — a sun-warmed bowl of cliffs above a grassy valley — is unchanged. A path zig-zags up past chapels built into and around natural caves, each one named after the saint who is supposed to have used it. Allow two hours for the climb and visits. The site is most easily reached as a half-day excursion by hired car from Lhasa; combined with Ganden it makes a full day.