When the spring equinox has comes, the sunlight becomes very warm, the white flowers of pear bloom
and new green leaves sprout in the rGyalrong (the Queen Valley) around 2500m high.
Then, it shows beautiful scenery along with the colony of the stone-piled houses what has peculiar style.
There are several styles of the house in the Queen Valley, and the most beautiful one is in Danba.
The roof on the house of the 3 - 6th floor is plain and having 4 sharp uprising corners what has the meaning of amulet.
Because it makes often the colony what stand close together, it looks like a small castle in the Middle Age Europe when seeing it from the distance.
The design of the amulet is pictured with the plaster on the thick wall, a window frame and a wall at the terrace is decorated with colorful paint.
Also, the legendary animals, the trumpet shells and the flowers are pictured such as on the wall and the ceiling of a parlor and a room what is dedicated to a god.
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| Scattered stone-piled houses
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| Bristling stone-piled towers
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On the other hand, the stone-piled high tower stands in many place of the Queen Valley.
It is about 10 m wide in the bottoms and 15 - 50 m high. The shape is a square, an octagon and so on.
This tower has been used for various purposes in the long history.
It seemed that the origin of the tower was the altar or the symbol of the divine right.
But in the after times, it became built as the dedication to the god (such as when the auspicious numbers of children was born),
the beacon stand, the fortress and the warehouse.
The tower what was built as the altar or the symbol of the divine right can be seen only in the remote village,
but the beacon stand and so on can be seen in here and there from the car road.
It is Danba where these many towers are left with good condition. The stone-piled houses and towers in Danba are introduced at the following book.
Frederique Darragon "Secret Towers of the Himalayas" Shenzhen Media Group Publishing House, September 2005 ISBN7-80709-043-X
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