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Phodong Monastery, Labrang Monastery and Tumlong Palace ruins : All
these three are located within an area of one square kilometer and about 40
kilometers from Gangtok on the North Sikkim Highway. Phodong Monastery, which
belongs to the Kargyupa Sect (Karmapa), is situated about a kilometer uphill by
a jeep able road that bifurcates from the North Sikkim Highway. The Chogyal
Gyurmed Namgyal built the Phodong monastery somewhere in the first quarter of
the eighteenth century.The main annual puja is performed on the 28th and 29th
day of the tenth month of the Tibetan calendar two days before Losoong when the
religious Chaams or dances are also demonstrated. Another kilometer uphill from
Phodong Monastery on the same jeep able road is the Labrang Monastery, which was
built about, one hundred years later but belongs to the Nyingmapa sect. Just
below the road between Phodong Monastery and Labrang Monastery are the ruins of
the third capital of Sikkim Tumlong. In the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the capital of Sikkim was shifted from Rabdanste to Tumlong, which then remained
the capital for almost ninety years. The Raja’s house is now in complete ruins
covered with a thick canopy of bushes, but we can conjure up an image of what it
looked like in Dr. Hooker’s account during his visit the imprisonment here in 1849.
He wrote in the Himalayan Journal, the chortens surrounding the Palace have
however withstood the vagaries of nature and many of them can be seen. There are
many buses plying of the route on which Phodong lies. Taxis are also readily
available for Phodong from Gangtok. Cheap accommodation is available at Phodong
Bazar, which also has a few shops.
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