India is a country full of diversity and the land here is full of variations at every step. Today I have brought a unique gem from this diversity. It is a Buddhist monastery situated on the peak of a small village located in West Bengal. The name of this monastery is Manedara Samton Monastery, this Buddhist monastery is situated at an altitude of 2450 meters. It is built in the Nyingma style and was built in 1917. Today it has been 107 years since this monastery was built and this monastery still stands as if it was built today.
Graphic created in Adobe Photoshop
So friends, today I will take you to the door of this monastery. Rimbik is situated in West Bengal, its altitude is 1850 meters and the population here is 200. This monastery is 5 km on foot from Rimbik. And today my friend and I want to go here on foot. While having dinner in the evening itself, we decide that we will leave tomorrow morning after breakfast to visit this monastery and the next day, following our strategy exactly, we start walking at 9 in the morning.
We had to walk on the road for the first 2 km. Although I don't like walking on the road that much, but when you can see the views at every step, then why wouldn't you want to walk on such beautiful roads. Walking on the road, we cross pea and potato fields. Almost all the houses here are made of mud, stone and wood. Looking at these houses when 2 km. We didn't even realize it was complete. A little further ahead, big Buddhist flags were seen in a row, which created a beautiful frame in the lap of nature, which was no less than a pleasure to see
Now it was time to leave the road and walk on the trail and this point is the point where an entire house is decorated with flowers. I am presenting before you a sample of this house which is decorated with flowers. We move ahead with these flowers adorning our eyes. My friend, whose name is Vijay, has a little excess body weight, that is why he is having trouble walking. I also told him that if he is in too much trouble, let him stay today, to which he said that now it is only 3 km away, so there is no need to stop, we just have to reach the destination. And he moves forward with long steps, I keep looking at his amazing power.
Today the weather is much clearer than yesterday and the sky is decorated with blue color and the air sometimes feels cool and sometimes hot due to the heat of the sun. Soon we enter the limits of Sano village. There are only a few houses here and the population here is only 30 people. A very beautiful view of the Rimbik Valley is visible from this village. If you are here in the evening, you will see a very golden view of the setting sun and to tell you the truth, this view will captivate you. It is a custom here that there must be flowers in front of every house, the belief behind this is that flowers keep the atmosphere of the house peaceful.
Crossing Sano village and soon we are standing in front of a Gompa built in the memory of a monk. If we move ahead from here, the boundary of the monastery begins. And in a few steps we reach the monastery. Till now we have walked the entire 5 km but after reaching here both of us feel disappointed. The guard located here says that today the monastery is closed for the general public because the monks have gathered here since morning for worship and a special puja has been organized today.
We were sad to come so far and not be able to go to the monastery, but considering reaching here as an achievement, we spend half an hour here and then head back to our hotel. The entire route from Rimbik to the Monastery was full of climbs, whereas now it will not take us time to reach Rimbik because the entire route is down hill. We both shake hands and end the journey by saying “We will come again sometime to visit this 107 year old monastery”.
Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to tranlate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from android poco f1 and edited in Lightroom/photoshop.