Jalori Pass - जालोरी

With nearly seventy years of age (myself) and my wife (much younger) we dared again to cross the High Himalaya Main Range in the Indian Himalayas. From September to November 2003 we visited the formerly autonomous Tibetan provinces (polities) of Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnaur in the Himachal Pradesh. We trekked to the Tibetan border and Changra Tal (Moon Lake: 4270 m) and crossed the 4650 m Kunzum La from Lahaul to Spiti. From the capital of Spiti, Kaza (3600 m), we visited some the best preserved monasteries of the Tibetan Buddhism like Ki Gompa, Kibber Gompa, Tabo Gompa, Dankar Gompa, Lachung Gompa and Kungri Gompa. These monasteries are mostly more than 1000 years in age and belonged to the West-Tibetan kingdom of Guge. They are in contrast to the monasteries in Tibet (People's Republic of China) not destroyed like the monasteries in Tholing and Tsaparang (we visited them in the year 1998) and many others, which were demolished in the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960's and 1970's. The many wall paintings and frescoes which are more than 1 000 years old, are the best Buddhist art works still to be found. Some of them are documented by photography for the first time.