This high-altitude trip, set against the breathtaking background of the Himalayas, is one of the greatest ways to learn about one of Asia’s oldest religions and go in quest of one of the region’s most elusive animals.
Wearing layers of maroon robes and a knitted mustard hat, Khenpo Nyima Samdrup, the abbot of Thasung Tsholing Gompa in Nepal, sat in front of a stove in the monastery’s cramped kitchen. On the day I went, the wind was coming from the north and skimming the surface of the lake, creating little ripples. The neighboring mountains were shrouded in dense clouds.
Khenpo added more wood to the fire and said that the monastery was established some 400 years ago to keep hunters away from musk deer, snow leopards, and other wildlife. “‘Surrounding’ is what Tha signifies.
Located near Dolpo, in northwest Nepal, on the shores of Phoksundo Lake, lies the old Bon monastery known as Thasung Tsholing. The remote Dolpo region is home to isolated religious hermitages, high passes, and jagged gorges. It is culturally Tibetan and home to some of the few remaining examples of Bon, the native religion practiced throughout the Tibetan plateau before to the introduction of Buddhism in the 7th century CE.
The Lower Dolpo Circuit, a 220 km trekking path that winds through the southernmost regions of Dolpo, passes right by the monastery. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet during the 1960s and 1970s, when the Chinese government endeavored to destroy Tibet’s religious and cultural identity.
