Places
Tawang Monastery (Galden Namgey Lhatse)PilgrimageTawang
Founded in 1680–81 by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso at the behest of the fifth Dalai Lama, and among the largest Buddhist monasteries in India. A walled compound of some sixty-five residential buildings around an assembly hall holding a gilded Buddha about eighteen feet high, with a library whose Kangyur and Tengyur sets include manuscripts written in gold. It functions as a working Gelugpa institution with several hundred monks, not as a monument.
Best time: October–November, or January for Torgya.
Urgelling MonasteryPilgrimageTawang
A small monastery a few kilometres below Tawang, and the birthplace in 1683 of Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama, whose poems are still sung across the Tibetan-speaking world. Modest, quiet and much older in significance than in appearance.
Tawang TaktsangPilgrimageTawang
A cliff-side gompa on the route north of Tawang, associated in local tradition with Padmasambhava, in a stand of old-growth forest. The setting is the reason to go — the site is understood as a meditation retreat rather than a congregational monastery.
Sela PassNatureTawang
The pass at about 4,170 m that separates the Tawang basin from the Kameng valleys, with a small lake below the top that freezes in winter. The road tunnel beneath it, opened in March 2024, is what now keeps the route open when the pass itself is snowed under. Above the tree line, treeless, and cold in any month.
Best time: October–November and April–May.
Nuranang FallsNatureTawang
A high single-drop waterfall on the Nuranang below Jang, on the road between Sela and Tawang, with a small hydel station at its foot. Reliable through the year and heaviest after the monsoon.
Zemithang and the Gorsam ChortenPilgrimageTawang
A broad valley on the Nyamjang Chu with the largest stupa in the belt — a whitewashed hemispherical chorten on the Nepalese pattern, circumambulated by pilgrims and the focus of the Gorsam Kora gathering. The valley flats below are one of only two black-necked crane wintering grounds in India.
Best time: November–March for the cranes.
Sangti ValleyNatureWest Kameng
A wide flat-floored valley of gravel river bed, pasture and terraced field west of Dirang, and the better known of the two black-necked crane wintering sites — though only a handful of birds arrive in most years, and riverbed disturbance has made even that unreliable. Also apple, kiwi and trout country.
Best time: November–February.
Dirang Dzong and the hot springsHeritageWest Kameng
An old walled village of stone-and-timber houses built wall-to-wall above the Dirang Chu, still lived in rather than preserved, with sulphur hot springs on the river below that are used year-round. The National Research Centre on Yak is a short distance away.
ThembangHeritageWest Kameng
A fortified Monpa village on a spur above the Dirang valley, entered through two stone gates, with the houses forming the wall. It is on India's tentative list for World Heritage inscription and is run partly as a community conservation area by the village itself.
Bomdila and Gontse Gaden Rabgyel LingPilgrimageWest Kameng
The district town on a ridge at about 2,400 m, with a Gelugpa monastery established in 1965 by the twelfth Tsona Gontse Rinpoche, a craft centre and an apple-growing hinterland. The usual overnight stop on the way up.
Rupa and ShergaonHeritageWest Kameng
Sherdukpen villages on the foothill shelf, with their own language, weaving and the Khiksaba festival in November. Historically the community moved down to the Assam plain edge for the winter and back up for the summer, and the two-settlement pattern is still visible.
Eaglenest Wildlife SanctuaryWildlifeWest Kameng
A ridge dropping from around 3,200 m to 500 m in a short horizontal distance, which is why its bird list is one of the longest in the eastern Himalaya. The Bugun liocichla, described in 2006, is known from here and almost nowhere else, and the adjoining Singchung Bugun Village Community Reserve is managed by the community the bird is named for.
Best time: March–May and October–November.