Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La
A hand-picked boutique retreat
Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La is the Tibetan lodge where the Songtsam group began in 2001 — a four-storey house in Kena village, a two-minute walk from Songzanlin Monastery, at 3,280m. Its 23 rooms run from 29m² to 64m², 20 of them looking across Lamuyangtso Lake, and the house is filled with thangkas, antique furniture and woven carpets, with a restaurant, a lobby bar, a reading room and a rooftop terrace.
Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La (松赞绿谷山居) is where Songtsam began — the group's first lodge, opened in 2001 in Kena, the farming village where founder Pema Dorjee grew up, beneath the walls of Songzanlin Monastery. The monastery is a two-minute walk away. The lodge is a four-storey Tibetan house hung with thangkas and furnished with antiques and woven carpets, and 20 of its 23 rooms look across Lamuyangtso Lake to the hills. The kitchen reworks Tibetan dishes around what the village grows — barley, buckwheat, potatoes — and the wild mushrooms and matsutake of the rainy season.
Highlights
- Songtsam's first lodge, opened in 2001 in the village where founder Pema Dorjee grew up
- A two-minute walk from Songzanlin, the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan
- Just 23 rooms, 20 of them looking across Lamuyangtso Lake to the hills
- Thangkas, antique furniture and woven carpets throughout — the house reads like a small museum
- Tibetan cooking reworked around the village's barley and buckwheat, with matsutake in the rainy season
- Fires lit in the lounges, a reading room and a rooftop terrace, at 3,280m
Inside Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La
Staying at Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La
01 Where is Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La and how do I get there?
It's in Kena village — the name means, roughly, the village beneath the monastery walls — a two-minute walk from Songzanlin Monastery and away from the bustle of Shangri-La town. Diqing Shangri-La Airport is 12km away. The lodge sits at 3,280m, so we keep the first evening gentle and let the altitude settle.
02 What are the rooms like?
There are 23, from 29m² to 64m², in three types — Superior, Deluxe and Family Suite — and 20 of them look across Lamuyangtso Lake to the hillsides, some from a balcony. Four are in an annexe rather than the main house. All are done in Tibetan style with modern comforts: heating, tea and coffee, robes, and a bath or shower.
03 Who is this stay best for?
Travellers who would rather wake beside a working monastery than in town — Songzanlin on foot from the door, village elders walking the kora around its walls at dawn and dusk, and a house full of Tibetan art — and walkers using Shangri-La as a base for the high country around Abujicuo's alpine lake and the Nanjiluo ridge. It's one of the stays on our Classic China & Yunnan journey.
