This 1672 monastery, the spiritual centre of Ladakh’s Drukpa Buddhists, is hidden in a high sharp valley behind curtains of craggy red rocks. The scene looks especially dramatic when the mountains behind are misty with low cloud. The main monastery’s rectilinear exterior lacks the vertically stacked perfection of Chemrey or Thiksey, but inside the fine central courtyard has plenty of colourfully detailed timbers, the main prayer hall has wobbly four-storey pillars, and the garish 8m-high Padmasambhava statue has hypnotic eyes.
Documents supposedly found here were used to support Jesus-in-India conspiracists’ notion that Christ visited Kashmir. They have since disappeared but the monastery’s extensive museum retains some other very precious religious treasures mixed in with spurious tiger skins, skull vessels, swords, a bra-shaped wooden cup-case and a stuffed ‘vulture pup’. Escape the tourist hordes by arriving early and exploring the atmospheric upper, rear shrines and hiking the lovely stream path beyond the big, new, school construction site, for peace and great mountain views.
