Lovely white-painted traditional Rutok huddles at the base of a splinter of rock, atop which is Rutok Monastery , flanked at both ends of the hill by the crumbling, but still impressive, ruins of Rutok Dzong . From here, you can see the reservoir below and Pangong-tso in the distance. The surrounding villages are largely deserted in summer, as herders move to higher pastures.
The intensely atmospheric main chapel of the monastery has a large statue of Jampa (Maitreya) and a bronze Garuda to the left. Clearly, at one time the whole eastern face of the hill was covered in monastic buildings. The monastery was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt in 1983–84; it now has just six monks.
