Embarking this far north, along a wild stretch of the river, gives you the chance to see a wonder few outsiders have ever witnessed: the Irrawaddy's Second Defile, a dramatic passage between soaring limestone cliffs, past hillside monasteries, and along vast swaths of undisturbed forests.
From a hillside perch fronting the Ramakrishna Monastery, Wil Devine, a jean-clad monk, pointed east toward a long verdant foothill and ridgeline.
In 1982, he wandered across the wreck of a Byzantine monastery on a rocky hillside about 50 miles from Damascus, its 11th-century frescoes faded by years of sun and rain.
Use one to get to Lingyin Temple (lingyinsi.org), a working monastery with caves and hillside grottoes; more than 300 Buddhist carvings dating to the 10th century are cut into the limestone.
The end of the first day of driving, past military camps and roadside villages, brings you to Bomdila, a monastery-town on a hillside.
The square houses of Hora clamber up the hillside to the very battlements of the monastery, dazzling white against the fortress's more subdued dun tones.
They are among more than 37,000 people who have gathered behind the red brick walls of the monastery complex, on a bucolic hillside outside of town.
Modeled on a Greek monastery, it was set atop a hillside and reached by an aerial tram.
Here, on a hillside, the people of Mustang had built the monastery of Lo Gekar, one of the oldest in the Tibetan world.
Set amid holm oaks, olive trees and spindly cypresses, on a hillside just outside Tivoli, this tastefully restored Renaissance monastery is a delightful spot to seek sanctuary for a few days.
