On the Buddha Trail (1) ::::::Tabo

My first post on my recent Buddhist Trail.

I headed to Delhi from Bangalore on a beautiful Saturday morning with this map and the return tickets after 2 weeks and no plans !!

Once at Delhi, headed to Janpath for the bus to Manali. While waiting for the bus I met Christine, an elderly French lady , an author of 15books, a PhD in psycho-ethnology( don't ask me what one really researches for that!!) . She has been a world traveller and even spent 3 years in early 1970s as a 20 year old hitchhiking around India . We had an interesting conversation while seated in the heat of Delhi (39 degrees Celsius, phew) about society, people, freedom ,women's place in the society, human mind and genetics . In the midst of our talk she said she felt i would write a book very soon :) not sure why she thought that way. Only time well tell if her premonition worked out !. We parted ways as our buses arrived.

I was the odd one out in the Volvo bus I had boarded for Manali, the rest of the passengers were all newly married Indian couples heading for their honeymoon. The bus reached Manali early next morning and I headed to the Govt. bus station and bought the bus ticket for Kaza for early next day. I then checked into a nice little hotel on school road in the quieter part of town and at a walkable distance from the Govt Bus stand. The rest of day was spent just lazying around and walking around the town.

Woke up really early next morning and headed to the bus station at 4:30a.m. with not a single soul to be seen around , unlike the regular hustle bustle one sees on Mall road during day light. As I approached the bus station, human life again came into existence, with a bunch of people already there , all heading to various destinations along with the chaiwala, who was doing brisk business at that hour. After a much awaited morning cup of tea, the bus took off at 5a.m. sharp for Kaza. The tickets for the arduous journey of 200kms on almost non-existent roads for most parts costed only Rs 150 and was filled with mainly local people and 3 other travellers including me. Some of the people in the bus were a bit inquisitive to see a lone Indian woman traveller and thought me to be a research student :)

The bus reached Kaza, the main bus hub in Spiti in about 11 hours with pitstops for breakfast and lunch. I got down from the bus and walked around a bit and figured that there was nothing much to do in Kaza unless ofcourse you are a foreign traveller and need a permit to other places. It was around 4pm , and I could either head to Kibber(1 hours drive) or Tabo (2hours drive) by the next bus that left in an hour. I decided to head to Tabo , since the same bus from Manali itself was heading that way.

The bus reached Tabo around 7pm , when the surroundings were pitch dark, with no street lights or any other visible lights . I asked the first person I saw around the bus stop for the directions to the Tabo Monastery since I wanted to try and get myself a place in the Monastery Guesthouse (GH) and then a kid standing nearby was so very helpful to walk me all the way through the narrow winding streets with no name (remember that song!!) to the GH.
After being up since 4am that morning and being travelling on tough bone crunching roads for more than 14hours I was ready to hit the bed, at the first sight of a room. Thankfully I was the only traveller and I took the first room the person showed me at the monastery, which was such a bargain for Rs150. I love the convenience of these guesthouses available in almost all monasteries across India. After an hours rest I headed to the only restaurant open there and ordered for a pizza and waited for 1 hour but it never arrived because of the power outage and other reasons, so I justed headed back to my room and had to eat the fruits I had picked up from Manali.

Located in the valley of Spiti at an altitude of 3050m and a population of around 700 people, the Tabo Monastery is quiet often referred to as the Ajanta of the Himalayas. Founded by an eminent scholar Richen Zangpo in the 996 AD, as an advanced centre of learning, this is basically a complex that houses a number of small gompas, temples and monasteries. It's second in importance in significance only to the Tholing Gompa in Tibet in the entire Himalayan region. Even today, the monastery is keeping up its image of an efficient and effective learning centre by opening up schools to impart modern education to the newer generation.

The gompa walls have beautiful Buddhist murals painted 1000 years ago all using natural dyes. Photography inside the Gompa is strictly prohibited . It has been maintained to most extent thankfully it's so remote a place for too many tourists to visit but I did see a bit of paintings disappearing because of the recent rains. Tabo was an arid desert till 6 years back when it started to experience a bit of drizzle but this year it had heavier downpours, I witnessed it on one of the days I was there, all thanks to the climate changes happening all around the world As you walk you witness the beautiful mountain ranges surrounding Tabo ,some arid and some had a bit of snow when I was there.

The place as such is undergoing a lot of development from the funding received from the Village development scheme of the Govt. of India.
With new roads, telephone exchange etc. It has access to electricity but I never saw it functioning the days I was there. People mostly use Solar charged lights if the weather permits. The telephone also works maybe 1 hour in the afternoon.

However, with all its remoteness and altitude, It seemed that the locals had their basic needs met and children going to the two schools functioning.

The villagers were extremely friendly and I felt being transported to my childhood days which was spent outside cities and where almost everybody seemed to know everybody . At Tabo, as i walked around, the locals would also recognize me and greet me and talk to me. The only vehicles around where a few bikes or the tourist vehicles that would come in , people getting down to take a few pics and heading out.

I attended the morning prayer session at the new enclosure of the monastery on a cold and rainy morning. It's almost an hour and half session and in between the monks serve some hot tea to the visitors and themselves .

The GH also has a very good library with a wide selection of books on Buddhism and spirituality.


On the 2nd day as i walking around I bumped into Christian, an elderly French traveller , he must be atleast 75 , who was also there in the bus from Manali to Kaza at Tabo. Over a meal we spoke about his love for India, Buddhism etc. He has been travelling to India almost every year for past 12 years. I was really impressed by this soft spoken and elderly person roughing it out on the roads of India all on his own.







After spending 2 days at Tabo, I decided to head out and waited for a bus one afternoon ( see the school kids waiting as well !) for almost 3hours but it didn't turn up because of landslides and bad roads.

The kids around the bus stop had no worry about the bus and the waiting hours was spent playing hop scotch and other games. It was such a change one gets to see in the cities where nobody has the time and everybody is just rushing and aggressive.

Sadly, the bus didn't turn up and the children had to walk about 6-8kms back home.

With the confirmation of the bus not coming, I again went and checked into the Monastery GH for that night and the GH Incharge told me to try my luck the next morning or attempt to hitch a ride.


I headed to the main road bus stop the next day along with Christian whom I met at the Monastery and we got talking and since he was heading half way to Dhankar, he walked along.
We waited again for 2 hours but no bus even on that day and also saw only 2 other vehicles already full of passengers passing by.

There was a jeep waiting with 2 tourists from one of the GH and I went and requested the Indian Guide to give us a ride to Kaza and Dhankar but he curtly refused even after hearing the plight of the bus not coming for the past 2 days. A bit later, a jeep was visible coming our way however, with 8 other people already inside . The jeep stopped at the bus stop to re-fuel and with no other option insight, and the driver and other passengers agreeing to take us in as well, we marched on!! With no fuel refill insight and a full house, we headed forward with the belief that somehow we will manage to find fuel on the way, also keeping in mind that the next official Fuel station ( apparently the highest in the world) was at Kaza, our destination about 45kms away.
We got lucky(life couldn't be that tough, with no buses for 2 days and almost no fuel in the middle of nowhere) after a few kms, where we found a tractor that was being used by road workers and the driver was able to request and buy some fuel from that vehicle.


Pics from this trip:

• Tabo
• Manali-Kaza
• Kibber
• Nako
• MacLeodGanj

Other related posts:

• On the Buddha Trail (1) ::::::Tabo

• On the Buddha Trail (2) ::::::Kibber

• On the Buddha Trail (3) ::::::Nako

• On the Buddha Trail (4) ::::::MacLeodGanj