Chamba and Manimahesh

Chamba was the capital of a state that ran from the tenth century until 1948, and unlike most hill capitals it was never sacked, never abandoned and never rebuilt after an earthquake. What is standing is what was built.

The Lakshmi Narayan complex is the reason to come. Six stone temples in one enclosure, the earliest around 920 AD, in the north Indian shikhara form but carrying wooden canopies over their spires because the snow here would otherwise sit on them. There is nothing else quite like that combination, and it is a working temple rather than a monument.

The Bhuri Singh Museum, ten minutes away, holds the Chamba miniatures and the rumals — silk squares embroidered with double-sided satin stitch so that both faces are finished. The technique is local and is still practised.

Manimahesh is a different proposition and needs saying plainly. The lake is at 4,080m below a peak that has never been climbed because nobody attempts it, and the pilgrimage to it runs on a short calendar between Janmashtami and Radhashtami. In that window the thirteen kilometres up from Hadsar are busy, supplied and supported. Outside it there is nothing on the route, the weather turns fast and the ground is snowbound for most of the year.

We drive to Hadsar. The walk from there is yours, and it is a serious one — nineteen hundred metres of climb, best taken over two days with a night at Dhancho rather than pushed in one.