Rabdentse



The Ruins

The name itself is abundantly mysterious. It's basically an unheard of place tucked away in the midst of a most beautiful landscape. It happens to bequeath the most splendid view you can ever imagine of the mighty Kanchendzonga.

Let me give you a background first. This was the second capital of Sikkim around 300 years ago. It saw one of the bloodiest eras in sikkim, with invasions from the neighboring country. It was destroyed by the invading army, and now you can see only the endless ruins. It has an eerie kind of feeling to it, with its bloody past, I am not surprised though.

The ruins are located near an obscure place on the Pelling - Geyzing road. When we went there, we first thought of returning back as the first glimpse of the road was not encouraging. Then when we proceeded, we found that the road took us through a dense fern forest. We started to like the road. It was not an amazing feeling, as the forest was really dense. But it was good. After a 15 minutes of brisk walk, suddenly the view opened in front and we could see the majestic ruins! Some people like to time travel.  I am one of them. I get a tingling feeling inside my stomach when I am in such a place. I basically get lost in my thoughts, and imagine how it was at that time. You could literally feel the original inhabitants walking around!

Forest Road

We chose a bad day to visit. The whole place was enveloped in clouds. We could make out in distance, the pemayangtse monastery, meekly peeking at us through the clouds. In a good day you get a majestic view of the mighty Kanchendzonga. There is also a pretty  garden inside the ruins with some beautiful flowers. My wife got busy trying to get a butterfly pose for her, which unfortunately was interested in some other things. But eventually my wife won. In the meantime I was waiting and praying so that the cloud cover vanishes and I could catch a glimpse of the snow peaks. Dusk was approaching and we decided to say goodbye.

We approached our forest road and I turned around to catch a final glimpse. Suddenly I thought I saw a person wearing a royal robe standing near one of the huge walls! Then the cloud cover swept over the entire ruins and he vanished. I turned back and started my journey to our car. Will my wife believe me?

The butterfly