Lama Temple (Yonghegong): Beijing's Living Tibetan Buddhist Monastery

Yonghegong (雍和宫, Yōnghégōng), known in English as the Lama Temple, began as a princely residence in 1694 and became the most important Tibetan Buddhist monastery in imperial China. Unlike most Beijing heritage sites, it never stopped functioning. Monks in maroon robes cross the courtyards, Beijing families come to pray for exam results and pregnancies, and the air is thick with sandalwood smoke from dawn onwards. You are visiting a place of worship that happens to sell tickets, and it behaves accordingly.

Five halls step northward in ascending scale. The finale is the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses, containing a standing Maitreya Buddha 18 metres tall, carved from a single Tibetan sandalwood trunk and reaching up through three storeys — you crane your neck to find the face. It is genuinely startling. Along the way are Tibetan thangkas, a wall of small bronze deities, and prayer wheels worn shiny by hands.

It is small, dense and easily done in an hour, which makes it one of the better-value sights in the city at ¥25. Come at opening: mornings bring the most worshippers and the best light through the smoke, and by mid-afternoon the courtyards fill with tour groups shouted at through megaphones.

Practicalities: the site is flat with low thresholds, mostly stone paving. There is no café inside, but the surrounding lanes on Wudaoying Hutong have plenty. Dress reasonably — shoulders covered, no beachwear — and stay quiet in the halls where people are prostrating.