Visit to Rajpur

On Sunday we took a taxi down to visit friends Asha and Dino outside Dehra Dun. This was our first trip to the Rajpur area in many years. We were impressed with the many beautiful homes in the area. It appears to be a popular place to live with the advantages of being near Dehra Dun but away from the crowding, traffic, and pollution that have gotten so bad. Their home is in a lovely area off the Sahastradara Road between two Tibetan areas – one an older village called Dekhyiling Settlement and the other a new area, the Songtsen Library Center for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies. We toured the campus of the library, which includes a beautiful school for the lamas where Asha teaches English. I took many pictures, some of which are shown below.

On the top, you can see the 1964 Mercedes which was given by the Dalai Lama to His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche (head of the library) and the facade of the library itself. The lower picture is the school with a garden in front. If you'd like to learn more about the library, its website is http://www.songtsen-library.org/