One of Zanskar's most important monasteries, Stongdey Gompa doesn't look like much when viewed from below, but it crowns a bird’s-eye perch with stupendous views over the Zanskar Valley. It's best seen in morning light.
Legend has it that Stongdey was once perched above the shore of a large lake. A tiny, box-like room below the main monastery that was supposedly once right at lakeside around a millennium ago was where the Tibetan Buddhist's 'great translator' Marpa is said to have stayed to meditate.
The current monastery structure is predominantly from the 20th century, but the small, atmospheric prayer room, to the left as you enter the internal quadrangle, contains age-blackened murals thought to be 250 years old.
The monastery's festival is held on the last day of the fifth and first day of the sixth Tibetan months (July).
The access road winds up 2.5km from Km13 on the Zangla Rd, and a footpath climbs steeply from the village below. The road wasn't yet built in the 1980s when, on his first visit to Zanskar, the Dalai Lama climbed up to the monastery on the back of a yak.
