Thousands of people celebrated the unrolling of the thangka - a giant religious silk embroidery - to kick off the start of the Lhasa Yogurt Festival on Tuesday.

Accompanied by the sound of horns reverberating through the valley, monks slowly unrolled the thangka on the mountainside behind the Drepung Monastary in the capital of the Tibet autonomous region at about 8 am.

"I have seen thangka in Qinghai before. But I was still totally shocked when I saw such a giant thangka today," said Cui Lingrui, a student from Nanjing University.