Dirapuk Monastery

Dirapuk is where the Kailash kora stops being a walk and becomes the thing people came for. After a day up the Lha Chu valley from Darchen, the path turns and the north face of Kailash stands directly across from the monastery, close and very large. Most pilgrims arrive in the afternoon, and the face catches the last light.

The cave and the name

The monastery is built around a meditation cave, and its name refers to it — dri ra phug, conventionally read as the horn cave of the female yak. The tradition holds that the 13th-century Drukpa Kagyu master Gotsangpa was led here by a dri — a female yak — which walked into the rock face and vanished, leaving the cave. He meditated in it, and the monastery grew around the site.

Like almost everything in this region the buildings are modern reconstruction, rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution, and are modest — a small assembly hall, the cave shrine, and guesthouse blocks that have grown up alongside to serve the kora.

The night before the pass

Dirapuk sits at roughly 5,050 metres, and it is the high camp of the circuit. The second day climbs from here to the Dolma La at about 5,630 metres, the crux of the whole kora, and how well you sleep at Dirapuk largely determines how that morning goes. Almost everyone finds it a hard night; that is normal at this altitude and not in itself a warning sign.

The view is the compensation and it is not a small one. Standing outside the guesthouse at dawn with the north face directly above is, for many people who walk the kora, the single image they keep.