Day 11 Langtang Village to Kanjin Gompa

Langtang Village Kanjin Gompa Latitude 28°12.97'N 28°12.74'N Longitude 85°30.67'E 85°34.27'E Altitude 3,673 metres 3,920 metres Ascent 247 metres Time (excluding rests) 2 hours 30 minutes Distance 7 kilometres

Looking back to Langtang between the two chortens...   The women tend the radish fields with relish...

Walk east out of Langtang past the village cess pit (or duck pond as my Mum would prefer me to call it). Pass through the village meadows where the good women of the village work hard scything hay for the winter. Climb the moraine beyond. View of Langtang from the moraine...        Pass a mani wall and two chortens (15 minutes) and enter an area of walled fields and prayer walls. It’s almost one long prayer wall from here to Kanjin Gompa. Not quite, but this path must have the most extensive collection of prayer walls in Nepal. Why did they build such a length of prayer wall? It must have been to seek protection, but from what?

Mondrong... The path up the valley... The setting of Kanjin Gompa...   Kanjin Gompa is an architectural miracle...

Cross a stream, and pass the Tibetan village of Mondrong where there are two lodges: Mundu Village Guest House Glacier Hotel and Lodge        Pass the Langtang Lirung primary school. Pass the little village of Shingdum on a little hillock (45 minutes). The village has three lodges Sindum Village Lodge Nameless Lodge (by the time you get there, maybe it will have a name) Another Lodge (ditto)        Walk the path through the thorn bushes, past two chortens. The path here is a little nearer the valley.        Pass a natural arch formed by two boulders (1 hour 15 minutes). At one point near here, the path is fenced off to restrict the movement of cattle. You can either go above this area or balance around the obstruction on the right.        Reach a mani wall, and two lodges (1 hour 50 minutes) Lodge Hotel Yalla Peak Hotel Ganja La Peak        Continue to climb through the ancient glacial moraines (2 hours 15 minutes). Reach Kanjin Gompa on the far side of the moraines (2 hours 30 minutes).

YetiZone Guidebooks   YetiZone Langtang and Helambu Guidebook     Helambu - Langtang map from Nelles Verlag

The magnificent setting of Kanjin Gompa

The Cheese Factory makes, er, cheese... Prayer wall detail...

Kanjin Gompa is named after the remarkable white sloping walled Gompa that lies at the junction of the Lirung valley with the Langtang Valley. It’s a truly beautiful building, an architectural marvel, despite its simplicity. Not so long ago the Gompa stood here in majestic isolation. Indeed even as late as 1989 the only other buildings that I can remember were the Cheese Factory, set up in 1956 by the Swiss, and the government lodge. The Gompa is not currently open to the public. The back wall of Kanjin Gompa is at the, er, back...        There are a vast number of incredibly ugly concrete lodges in this region on what was formerly the best pasture land. The haphazard development of lodges and the proliferation of their sewage pits is a tragedy in this fragile environment. The lodges could have been better sited much further away from the Gompa.

A break in the clouds...

A panarama of both ends of the valley, east on the left.

Last updated May 2000 - copyright Ian Johnson