It only takes about an hour to walk Tirthapuri's own short kora. Startihg fromthe hot springs the trail climbs to a cremation point, an oval of fire-blackened rocks. From this point an alternative longer kora route climbs up to the very top of the ridge, rejoining the trail near the long mani wall. The regular kora kora trail continues past a hole where pilgrims dig 'sour' earth for medicinal purposes. Futher along there's a 'sweet' earth hole. The trail reaches a miniature version of the Mt Kailash kora's Drolma-la, marked with mani stones and a large collection of yak horns and skulls. Below, prayer flags hang right across the gorge and a series of rocky pinnacles are revered as ranjung, or self-manifesting chortens.

The trail passes the Guru Rinpoche Monastery. Where the trail doubles back to enter the monastery there is a rock with a hole in it right below the solitary prayer wheel, which is a handy karma-testing station. Reach into the hole and pull out two stones. If both are white your karma is excellent: one white and one black means that it's OK: and if both are black you have serious karma problems. Perhaps another Kailash kora would help?

The monastery dukhang (assembly hall) is entered through an antechamber with vivid paintings of the Four Guardian Kings. A collection of comical-looking statues (the one of Jampa is particularly bad) overlooks the altar, while to the right side are stone footprints of Guru Rinpoche and his consort Yeshe Tsogyel. At one time the monastery was connected with the important Hemis Monastery in neighbouring Ladakh.

Outside the monastery a large circle of mani stones marks the spot where the gods danced in joy when Guru Rinpoche was enshrined at Tirthapuri. Beside it is a mani wall (a wall made of mani stones) over 200m long, the end result of a demon firing an arrow at the guru. He stopped the arrow's flight and transformed it into this wall. Finally the kora path drops back down t0 the riverside, passing a large collection of nani walls of various sizes on the way.

There are no facilities at the hot springs so you rnust be self-sufficient. Don't plan to waish away the dust of Ngari's roads here either, the springs simply gush down to the river, although pilgrims have dug a couple of very public bathing holes.

There is no public transport to Tirthapuri, The hot springs arc 9km south of Moincer (Mensi). which in turn is 65km west of Darchen along the main road to Ali. There's a checkpoint at Moincer. which is the dormotory town for the coal mines 20km to the
north-east.