The Far West

Zanda, Guge, Nako and Puh

Follow me to the wild, wild, wild west of Tibet to the land of the ancient Guge Kingdom, the violent Sutlej River, the forbidding and forbidden pass of Shipki La, through the heart of the Himalayan Range to the high mountain villages of Nako and Puh, at the head of the verdant Kinnaur Valley.

Mount Kailash, the most sacred mountain of all Eastern religions spawns four great rivers of India, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges, the Sutlej and the Indus.  The Sutlej River gently drains a lake on the western slope of Mt. Kailash, soon picks up power from glacier fed tributaries, until it spills over Shipki Pass into India.  This is the barren land of the vanished Guge Kingdom, high elevation, dry and cold, stripped of vegetation.  But there is a road, a trade route connecting the Tibetan Nomads with the villages on the eastern slope, remnants of the Guge Kingdom.  Some day I will take you there.

Access from the north through Ali (Shiquanhe), capital of Ngari Prefecture.

Guge Ruins are at Tholing, (Toling, Tsamda),  and Tsaparang, in the vicinity of Zanda village (Zhada, Zanda)

Montser, Tirthapuri are back on the main road to Mt. Kailash.

The Sutlej River flows past Zanda to Shipkila on the border with India.  Namgia, Puh and Nako are on the Indian side at the head of the Kinnaur Valley.