A short trip in Rinchenpong - a small village in West Sikim

After our weekend trip in Mandarmoni in last August, our mind and soul have been getting tiered in the midst of din and bustle of Kolkata, feeling clumsy mentally to see the meaningless political or social hegemony. Mind revolts : do we only live for some office chores and not deserved to be in some better place where we can rejuvenate our mind and come back refreshed. So we decided to escape from this city and go back to the nature ;-)

Planned for a trip within a short notice is always difficult and more difficult from Kolkata as while mentioning for a short trip, we usually confine ourselves within some very known places. The biggest problem of those places is that for huge tourist gathering those places are also becoming very much congested.

So we found a relatively lesser known place - named Rinchenpong in West Sikim. Though it has been told to us that none other than Rabindra Nath Tegore had spent couple of days here in 1920s but serene virginity of this place still remain intact. We started from Kaunamoyee, Salt Lake by Volvo bus operated by Royal Cruiser. To cut the big story small, I must say the service of the operator is good but the roads here are bad condition so instead of 12 hours it took 15 hours to reach to Siliguri. So my 2 cents: until and unless you make the plan in no time, you should avoid the bus route!

After reaching to the Siliguri, we took food from a local restaurant and started for our destination. We got shared jeep service from SNT bus stand as we are two but unfortunately the jeep driver put as many person as he wished inside the jeep. Eventually we need to wait over an hour in the bus stand and hence while coming down from Rinchenpong we reserved a private Sumo. I think the only pros of this shared jeep service is that they are pocket friendly. The ticket price was 300 per head. If you look you  thru the window, you can get view like this.
It's the view of Rangit River .

After five and half hour of tiring yet adventurous journey we reached to Rinchenpong. The first thing that will attract you is that it's calmness; such a calmness, it was hard for me to remember the last time I heard the chorus of cricket and other insects in such a distinct way.

Next day we woke up earlier than usual and from the balcony of our hotel, Mount Kanchenjunga and ranges greeted us. This is the first time I saw this world famous peak and I've dearth of language to express the beauty. There is one under construction place named as Rabindra Smriti Van that is named after memory of famous KOBIGURU (adjacent picture showing the entry of that place).

In Rinchenpong there are two more monasteries one is Rinchenpong Monastery (actual name is  
) that contains a rare idol of Buddha in which He embraced a woman. I remember from my childhood memory, that it is probably the symbol of Bojrojan (?) where Buddhism is mixed with the Tibetan Tantra of idology. Though I don't like this form of Buddhism but anyways different people has got their own  view. Every year probably on May here a big carnival held in which lots of local villagers also participate.

After this we trekked to Resum Monastery  and we were overwhelmed by the beauty of this wild route. We must admit if a local lama was not guiding us we were not able to find the road so quickly! The little boy (who was our guide) have a very sad life. His mother left him when his dad passed away.One of his relatives put him in this monastery where he is staying. They usually give the young lamas food twice in a day but still he might be living with dignity. After the short yet tough trekking (I'm considering people like us who are usually walking on the plain roads) for half an hour, we reached to the Resum Monastery that is deserted now. But the route is a treat..have a look here. Its such as nice experience to walk on this route.

  Where the trees give you the shades and your shoes sink into the fallen leaves... and you can sing with the music given by the unknown birds! When we reached to the deserted monastery, the first feeling was like that Ah.. at last :-).