McLeod Ganj and Bhagsu

The obvious day out if you are staying in Dharamshala, and the one almost every guest ends up doing. It works as a first day while you are still adjusting, or as a last one before you fly.

Nothing here is far from anything else. The whole point is that you get back to the same bed.

The temple complex

Tsuglagkhang is the Dalai Lama’s own temple and the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, and it is a working monastery rather than a monument. Monks debate in the courtyard most afternoons — a formal, loud, hand-clapping business that is well worth watching even without understanding a word of it.

Security is real: bags are checked, and cameras and phones are restricted in parts of the complex. Take as little as you can. The Tibet Museum on the same site is small, free and considerably harder going than most people expect, and it is the thing that gives the rest of McLeod Ganj its context.

If the Dalai Lama is in residence and teaching, the whole town fills and the temple runs to a different timetable. We check before the day rather than turning up and finding out.

Bhagsunag, and the walk above it

The temple is old and the waterfall behind it is a twenty-minute walk on a paved path that gets slippery in and after rain. In May the fall is a trickle; in August it is genuinely impressive and the path is genuinely wet. Both are worth the walk, but they are different outings.

Above Bhagsu the path carries on up to Dharamkot, which is where the walk gets good and where most of the day-trippers stop. It is a steady climb of about half an hour through pine, and there are cafés at the top with a view straight down the valley.

Parking, and why we drop rather than park

McLeod Ganj has a chronic parking problem and its central streets are narrow, one-way in places and full of people. In season a car can spend forty minutes looking for a space it will not find.

So we do this day as drop-and-collect: the driver puts you at the temple, goes and waits somewhere sensible, and picks you up at an agreed point and time. You walk between the temple, Bhagsu and the market, which are all within twenty minutes of each other on foot and are much better seen that way.

What we would add if you have longer

Naddi for sunset, which is on the itinerary, is the standard answer and it earns its place — the Dhauladhar goes pink and the whole Kangra valley is laid out below.

The better answer, if you have the legs and an early start, is to keep walking above Dharamkot towards Triund. You do not have to do the whole thing; even an hour up that path puts you clear of everybody and into proper mountain country.