Gongga monastery

Gongga monastery is located at the west slope of Mt Gongga with altitude of 3030 meters above sea level.

Location

It situates on a small “stage” that overlooking the large glacier that descends off the west side of Mt Gongga which is the highest peak in the eastern Tibet of Kham and Amdo.

Tradition

It is the sealed shrine of Kagyu sect’s succession living Buddha, who is known as Tulku Rinpoche. The reincarnation was formally started here by Kagyu Pa.

From this origin, systems of reincarnation—including Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama–were adopted by all major sects of Tibetan religion.

Brief

This monastery was damaged during the Cultural Revolution in 1960’s of 20^th century. It has been rebuilt by local villagers since late 1990’s of 20^th century.

Nowadays, this small Kagyu monastery is getting popular for its wonderful location for those, whom make this fairly tough Gonga Mount trek. This monastery is also a base for those whom plan to start a mountain climbing to the peak of Mt Gongga.

How to get to there

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There is no road to this site, the only transportation tool are motorcycle and small tractor. There are two routes that leads to here

By foot

A 5 days trekking starting from Kangding leads to here

By vehicle and Foot

One other option is by driving around from the north side of Mt Gongga to reach Liuba county, then switch to local 4 wheel drive vehicle to reach Tsemi La pass, then descending to Tsemi village, from which you will start to hike for about 1.5 -2 hours to reach at Gonga monastery

Be advised : There are three “Tsemi villages” — “Upper Tsemi village”, “Middle Tsemi village”, “Lower Tsemi village”; among of which the “Upper Tsemi village” is the one that closer to this monastery; the other two are near to each other and leads to the east slope of Mt Gonga and heading to Hailuogou Glacier and Luding