After a fairly active yesterday involving a lot of physical activity traversing the Kangra Fort and climbing to various other temples, we decided to try and take it easy on our last day at the Club Mahindra Resort. Tiny had observed on Google maps that there was a Monastery located just about 3 km walking distance from our resort and it seemed to be a fairly interesting place to visit. So after our usual breakfast, we turned our direction finder on Google Maps and headed towards the Monastery. Again, the entire journey to the Monastery was quite an ascent but we kept at it, slowly and steadily, and reached the entrance to the Norbulingka Monastery. The Monastery becomes visible only just as you reach there and we were really happy to have made it.
There is a nominal entrance fee of Rs. 20 for access to the Monastery, but it is totally worth it. An extensive property with well-manicured gardens, fountains and fishponds, and a beautiful cafeteria serving coffee and snacks. There is also a Norling Restaurant, a full-fledged restaurant which would put many reputable eating houses to shame. Actually, the Norbulingka Institute is basically a vocational training centre where students can learn so many vocations like painting, applique, wood carving and carpentry, traditional weaving, etc. There is a huge sales outlet, quite like a retail shop in any good mall, for marketing and selling the institute’s products. Unique hand crafted products that are sight to behold.
We spent a good two hours exploring this property at a leisurely pace, did a bit of shopping at their sales centre for remembrance sake and then began our descent towards our resort. Despite a round of coffee and snacks at Norbulingka Cafe, hunger pangs were beginning. We stopped at one of the nice bakery cafes called Bakes and Cakes which was on the way back and helped ourselves to a nice pizza there. Then the short remaining distance to the resort for a siesta and to prepare for our departure to Dalhousie the next morning.
Our pictures of the visit to Norbulingka are below:
