Himachal Diaries: Part Eleven

Day Seven (07.07.2024): Road trip from Tabo to Kaza via Dhankar

Good morning from Tabo! I woke up at 6am and was served room tea at 7am. We had breakfast at 8:30am and loaded the luggage in vehicles. 

Few did trek to the caves early morning for meditation. We left the hotel at 9am and drove towards Dhankar. 

The landscape was rough yet beautiful. Not everyone understands the beauty of Spiti and hence it's an offbeat destination. We saw the first glimpse of the monastery at around 10:30am and reached the base in 15 mins. 

On the way we passed by the new monastery. 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.

Dhankar Village 

It is situated at an altitude of 12,774 feet above sea level, between the towns of Tabo and Kaza.

Dhankar Gompa

Like a series of whitewashed limpets, the 1200-year-old Gompa clings precariously to an eroded cliff-edge rock pinnacle, overlooking the confluence of the Spiti and Pin rivers.

Climbing within the main building, stairs emerge beneath a stuffed goat as you reach the top-floor courtyard, off which lie a meditation cave, a room containing ceremonial masks, and the colourful quarters in which the Dalai Lama sleeps when visiting. 

The old monastery has five different halls, including Kanjur, Lhakhang, and Dukhang, and a huge life size silver image of Vajradhara, kept in a glass altar adorned with scarves and flowers. 

The Lhakhang Gompa is situated on the uppermost peak above the main monastery. This place is beautified with depictions of Shakyamuni, Tsongkhapa, and Lama Chodrang on the central wall. The monastery also has a statue of Vairochana or Dhayan Buddha with four figures seated back to back inside the monastery. 

One can also find Buddhist scriptures in Bhoti language, murals of Medicine Buddha, protector deities, and Buddhist thangkas.

Dhankar Lake

Offering beautiful reflections of the mountainscape plus chorten, this small lake sits high above Dhankar, accessed on foot by a steep 2km path that starts across the road from the New Monastery. Allow around an hour up. This lake was not a part of our itinerary. 

Done with the monastery, we had seabuck thorn tea and thupka at the Bendurya food joint at 11:30am. 

Post that we drove ahead to Kaza with a pitstop near the Pin river at noon. 

While everyone was busy clicking photos, reels, etc our captain was busy washing the car. We then drove ahead to Kaza. 

We crossed the bridge towards our hotel at 1:30pm and then drove ahead on the rough under construction sandy road and reached Hotel Spiti Sarai Resort at 2pm. Lunch was not ready yet so we were allocated rooms and even our luggage was sent. My room no was 304. The wallpaper was of Tabo monastery we visited yesterday. 

Finally we had lunch at 2:30pm. We had time to rest our bones till 4pm. We had completed only one fourth of today's sightseeing. More on this in next post.