Visit of Hemis Gompa

The path to Hemis is relatively simple – first 35 km along the main road from Leh to Karu (3340 m asl), which is just a dusty military backwoods with a checkpoint at a strategic crossroads. The main road to Manali leads through here, but also a little blind road to the monastery of Hemis and the road over the pass Chang la to Pangong tso lake or rather to the Chinese border and little known path to Nubra valley as an alternative to the path across the world-famous pass Khardung la. Our road leads over a small bridge over Indus and further along the arid ladackh plains along the winding road up to a small oasis in a narrow mountain valley where is the monastery together with a small village.

The monastery itself is a huge multistory building with traditional whitewashed walls.

The most beautiful part of the whole monastery is its courtyard with lots of prayer wheels and flags.

The most interesting part of the interior is the statue of Guru Rimpoche.

Interesting is also the adjacent village of Hemis which looks like as from a different century.

Essential are also ubiquitous chortens.

Not far from the monastery there is also a nice view of the valley of Indus laid about 400 vertical meters below.