Urgelling Monastery

Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama, in 1683. He remains the most unusual figure to have held the office — a poet who declined to take full monastic ordination and whose verses are still sung across Tibetan-speaking regions. That a Dalai Lama was born in this particular Himalayan side valley is a large part of what places Tawang in the wider Tibetan Buddhist world, and it is why a small compound has an outsized claim.

Not in the sense of a large monument, no — it is a handful of modest buildings around a courtyard with a few resident monks, and much of what stands is later than the seventeenth century. There is a tree in the grounds said to have grown from a walking stick planted by the young Tsangyang Gyatso. What makes the visit is the contrast with the enormous monastery on the ridge above, half an hour earlier in the day.

After the main monastery rather than before, because the contrast works in that direction. The package that comes here names it alongside the Ani Gompa nunneries and the war memorial above the town on the same afternoon. It is a few kilometres below Tawang, ten to fifteen minutes down into the valley by vehicle, and the whole stop takes thirty to forty-five minutes.

None to speak of — no signage of consequence, no shop, and often nobody about to ask. That is genuinely part of its character rather than a complaint, but it does mean you should either bring the story with you or take a guide from Tawang. Visitors who arrive knowing what happened here in 1683 get a great deal more out of half an hour than those who do not.

Not especially. The road down into the valley is narrow and the turning is easy to miss, so a driver who knows it is worth having — which in practice any Tawang driver will. There is no charge, no ticket and no formal opening arrangement; it is a small working monastery that receives very few visitors, and behaving as a guest rather than a tourist goes a considerable way there.

One of the easier stops in the Tawang district, as it happens. A vehicle reaches the compound itself and the ground within it is broadly level, so most of the visit is manageable. There are steps and a raised threshold into the shrine. Given that almost everything else in this part of Arunachal involves either altitude or a climb, that makes Urgelling worth knowing about.