Komic Village

Komic, World’s highest village connected by a road is situated at an elevation of 15027 feet above sea level. Majestic valley and snow-capped mountains make Komic village a heaven for nature and peace seekers.

Komic Village is at a distance of 19 km from Kaza and is connected with two other beautiful villages, Hikkim and Langza. Generally, most of the tourist/traveler did this small circuit in a day, but we decided to stay at Komic village and next day at Langza village. We took a shared taxi from Kaza to take us to Komic with a small stop at Hikkim.

So we reached Komic and decided to stay at the monastery guest house. The guest house was being managed by a local who as a host was very friendly. The room and food wERE simply amazing with an organic kitchen at the guest house called as “Spiti Organic Kitchen”. After taking a proper sleep and rest for almost 5 hours we decided to take a walk in the village.

To my surprise there was almost no one outside his/her home at that time as the temperature was around 4°C. The noticeable thing was that from each house, smoke was coming out of the chimney probably due to the burning of wood. The only person we met at that time was a kid, sitting outside his house and looking at us 😁.

Snow Leopard and Monastery

After the village, we decided to visit the Komic monastery. The monastery is known as “Sakya Tangyud Monastery”. It is one of only two monasteries belonging to the Sakya sect left in Spiti – the other, at Kaza itself. It was founded in the 14th century near Hikkim and Tangyud Monastery was relocated to Komic after the earthquake in 1975.

The oldest section of the Monastery is within the smaller red building on the ridge. This section has a goggle-eyed stuffed snow leopard hanging in its porch and women are not permitted in the inner prayer room.

Before leaving for the guest house I had a talk with a monk over a cup of tea, at the monastery for almost an hour. In between our talk, he asked me about my next destination and I told him it is Langza. So he told me about a man who used to take a shared taxi to Langza in the morning around 07:00 a.m. After that, he told me about the history of Komic village which was pretty fascinating.

History of Komic Village

Legend has it that due to a drought, the monks of Komic decided to shift the Komic monastery to the nearby, relatively low-lying village of Hikkim.

However, it is believed that the statue of Mahakaal refused to move the ground despite several efforts. The entire monastery was moved, and only a monk resided beside the statue to pray.

In 1975 an earthquake rocked the high altitude villages of Spiti, reducing the Hikkim monastery to ruins, still visible atop a small hill.

It was pretty surprising for the monks that the Mahakaal statue held its ground despite the massive earthquake. This incident convinced the monks that Komic village was the holiest place for a monastery, the monks decided to move back to Komic, where the monastery stands to this day.

End of Journey

After talking to the monk, I came back to my room for a much needed sleep. The temperature at night was -4°C, it was my first time to be in a minus temperature. I woke up early in the morning to catch the shared taxi at 07:00 a.m. to Langza.

There was a small pond of water nearby the guest house and to my surprise the water got froze and we could literally walk on the water, for me this experience was really fascinating.

It was 07:00 a.m. and I left Komic for Langza with a lot of wonderful memories.