Spiti
At Kungri, this very large, custard-yellow monastery is predominantly new but has three much more interesting medieval shrines, featuring blackened murals, festival masks and carved wooden snow lions. Women are not allowed past the threshold of two of them.
The complex is 2km off the road, turning west 1km south of Gulling (18km north of Mudh). The monastery's spartan, five-room guesthouse is to the left of the main entrance.
18.33 MILES
Founded in AD 996, and retaining five sub-temples dating back over 900 years, Tabo Gompa is reckoned to be the oldest continuously functioning Buddhist…
8.64 MILES
Like a series of whitewashed limpets, the 1200-year-old Dhankar Gompa clings precariously to an eroded cliff-edge rock pinnacle, high above the beautiful…
17.85 MILES
Covering a conical hillock with an array of whitewashed monastic buildings, Ki (Kee, Key) is the largest gompa in Spiti. Views of it from the south are…
29.32 MILES
Gue village (rhymes with 'few') is photogenically crowned by a colourful three-layered shrine-temple. This celebrates Tulka Sangya Tenzin, a mysterious…
11.67 MILES
Near the top of Lhalung village, this outwardly modest monastery is actually an antique gem. Beneath a yellow painted tin roof, the very atmospheric…
9.48 MILES
Offering beautiful reflections of the mountainscape plus chorten, this small lake sits high above Dhankar, accessed on foot by a steep 2km path that…
13.28 MILES
Probably founded in the 14th century near Hikkim, Tangyud monastery relocated to Komic after a devastating 1975 earthquake. The oldest section is within…
18.37 MILES
A number of small caves, whose openings are easily visible on the hillside just above the main road, were once part of the old monastery complex. Access…
8.62 MILES
On the very crown of the gompa crag stands the crumbling fort-cum-palace that gave Dhankar its name (khar means 'citadel' and dhak means 'cliff'). Now…
8.64 MILES
Like a series of whitewashed limpets, the 1200-year-old Dhankar Gompa clings precariously to an eroded cliff-edge rock pinnacle, high above the beautiful…
8.82 MILES
The lamas who remain at Dhankar no longer inhabit the old gompa, having moved in 2009 to the red-and-gold New Monastery, 800m away around the hillside.
9.48 MILES
Offering beautiful reflections of the mountainscape plus chorten, this small lake sits high above Dhankar, accessed on foot by a steep 2km path that…
11.67 MILES
Near the top of Lhalung village, this outwardly modest monastery is actually an antique gem. Beneath a yellow painted tin roof, the very atmospheric…
12.68 MILES
The colourful new Sakya Gompa, inaugurated in 2009, stands just above the main road in New Kaza. Across the road is a row of eight stupas, with lines of…
13.28 MILES
Probably founded in the 14th century near Hikkim, Tangyud monastery relocated to Komic after a devastating 1975 earthquake. The oldest section is within…
15.98 MILES
The golden face-paint is starting to peel off the large 2005 Buddha statue, who stares across the Spiti valley from a shoulder of ridge above Langza…