The Zong Dog Palri Fo-Brang Gompa sits on Durpin Hill at the southern end of town, built in the mid-1970s to a traditional Tibetan design. It is the newest of Kalimpong's main monasteries but arguably the most spectacular in terms of setting and interior decoration. The Dalai Lama consecrated the temple, and it belongs to the Nyingma school, the oldest of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The interior contains some of the finest traditional Tibetan wall paintings in the region, executed by artists trained in the Tibetan style and covering every surface from floor to ceiling. The iconography is dense and cosmologically complete; a knowledgeable guide can spend hours explaining it. From the monastery grounds, you can often see Kanchenjunga to the north — the third-highest mountain in the world and the highest peak entirely within India. The views alone make the trip to Durpin Hill worthwhile.