Now that we are sharing about different Monasteries of Spiti Valley, one of the beautifully located Monastery is the one in Kaumik which is at quite a high altitude and surrounded by dry, high and snow covered mountains. Reaching this place it little tricky as road is not very good and if weather is not good, it gets little more difficult. Especially when snow is around the road and it creates slush all around. This blogpost shares more about the monastery, some tips around exploring areas around it.
The Tangyud Monastery is also known as Sa-skya-gong-mig Gompa at Komic village of Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Like some of the other Monasteries in Spiti and Lahaul district of Himachal Pradesh, this one is also little different from modern monasteries, which are very colorful and high. Above photograph shows the Komic Monastery from outside and if you don't know there is a monastery in the village it looks like a big house or some institution/school within the village.
Tangyud Monastery is located on the edge of a deep canyon and overlooking the town of Kaza, Spiti 4 km to the west. It is located on the periphery of the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary.
Komic Gompa has pretty important status in Spiti valley. Interesting there were lot of vehicles at the time we reached and I am comparing that with people visiting other surrounding places like Langza and Key. That can be incidental and a perception that I made after reaching the place.
Tangyud Monastery is one of the highest altitude gompas (monasteries) in India, at an altitude of 4,520 metres. Nearby there is a cafe run by Echosphere NGO, which serves reasonable options of snacks & various kinds of tea/coffee. Above photograph is clicked outside the cafe and the cafe is on right side and the space you see in photograph is open area outside the cafe. It was awesome to sit under the sun and enjoy mix of chilled weather with warmth of the sun.
This place is 2 km from Hikkim village in the Spiti Valley. This gompa is located on high altitude facing some huge snow covered mountains on the other side. While we were walking around the place, we noticed storms and snowfall on some of these hills. Suddenly the sun went away and the chill in winds went up abruptly. We had multiple experience like this in Spiti when it comes to weather change here we could also witness some visual evidences of the activities which lead to such changes in the valley.
Related Post - How to reach Spiti Valley from Delhi and things to do around Kinnaur/Spiti in Himachal Pradesh
We walked around the Monastery and saw this shed in one of the houses around Komic Monastery. The cows you see in above photograph look more like a mixture of cow & yak.
Tangyud Monastery also has a stuffed snow leopard, preserved for many years now.
There is an Echosphere cafe in Koumic and I was super happy to find boards of Echosphere all around. I got to know about this organization in one of the TEDx events in Delhi and how this organization helps in building sustainable means of generating energy got this region through solar equipments and there are various initiatives.
Tangyud Monastery is built like a fortified castle on the edge of a deep canyon, with massive slanted mud walls and battlements with vertical red ochre and white vertical stripes which make them look much taller than they really are.
We took our lunch break at Komic and had sandwiches & Maggi kind of stuff with tea. We spent good 1 hr here and then it was time to head forward.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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