Important Details
About Lhalung Village
Lhalung Village is a quaint and offbeat pit stop of Spiti Valley. This mystical village is covered in so many enigmatic tales and they unravel during this fascinating trip. The name Lhalung means the “Adobe of Gods” and rightly so.
If you are accustomed to the Devta system, established all across Himachal Pradesh, then you would be fascinated to know that the Lhalung Devta is supposedly the head of all the Devtas of the Lingti Valley. It is also believed that the Lhalung Devta comes from the Tangmar Mountain located beyond the village in Lingti Valley.
How to Reach Lhalung Village
Technically, you can visit the Lhalung Village if you cover the Kee-Kiber-Chicham circuit or Kaza-Komic-Hikkim-Langza circuit, then proceed towards the Lhalung-Dhankar-Lingti route.
Kaza to Lhalung Bus
You can reach Lhalung from Kaza via the HRTC bus. The bus for Lhalung leaves the Kaza bus stand at 5:15 PM. The same bus rebounds from Kaza to Lhalung at 7:15 AM in the morning.
These services are operational only during the summer months. In the winter season, the roads become too slippery for buses to move.
Cab
Find a shared taxi that is plying to Lhalung from near the Kaza bus stand. If you wish to travel on a weekend during winters you have to hire a private taxi to reach Lhalung from Kaza.
Lhalung Monastery
The Lhalung Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in the Spiti Valley. Around the 10th Century, the Lhalung Monastery was burnt and the tales surrounding the monastery are equally intriguing. It is said that the people of Lhalung wanted to build a monastery toward off evil spirits and to make the gods happy.
So to initiate the process they called a “Rinpoche“(he is a religious leader and a teacher of Buddhist culture. So there are two stories; first story elaborates about how the Rinpoche planted a tree and it survived for a year while the monastery was built here. The other story says he planted multiple branches of Sea Buckthorn and the direction of the branch in which the first leaf comes out, was to chosen as the site of the monastery. It is believed that overnight, the angels are said to have descended and built the monastery in a day.
The Lhalung Monastery also contains a tunnel that is meant for circumventing the temple in the clockwise direction. Earlier, this holy place had various paintings which by now have faded over the years and no preservation is ever done on them.
Treks near Lhalung Village
You can trek from Demul to Lhalung Village through the coniferous vegetation of the Upper Himalayas. Ideally, it takes around 4-5 hours to reach Lhalung from Demul while hiking. The trail is easy and it goes down from Demul to the valley bottom. It takes 2 hours till the Pangdang River and it takes another 30 mins to reach Sanglung Village. Here, you can take rest and have a hearty meal. To reach Lhalung Village, you have to cross the Sanglung Bridge and hike a 1 hour steep ascent.
Camping in Lhalung Village
If you want to camp around the Lhalung Village, it is advised to get down at Demul and trek for 4-5 hours. Find a spot near the base of Pangdang River before reaching the village and ask any local for staying permission if you encounter one.
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All Villages of Spiti
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