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There is a place in the Himalayas where the smell of butter lamps and momos fills mountain air while monks in burgundy robes walk narrow cobbled lanes and prayer flags snap in the wind above pine forests. This is McLeodganj — and nothing in India quite prepares you for it. Home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile since 1960, McLeodganj sits at 1,457m in the Kangra Valley, with the Dhauladhar range — its peaks eternally white — rising dramatically behind it. The town pulses with Tibetan culture, Israeli backpackers, spiritual seekers, and the best thukpa (noodle soup) in India. Dharamshala below is the larger city — cricket ground (one of the world's most beautifully located), colonial churches, and the tea gardens of Kangra Valley stretching to the horizon. And above it all: Triund — a 3-hour trek from McLeodganj that ends at a meadow at 2,850m with the Dhauladhar range filling the entire northern horizon, snow walls so close you could almost touch them. The overnight camping here is one of India's most dramatic mountain experiences.
March to June & September to December