Ten days in Himachal Pradesh: the empire's summer capital, and the Dalai Lama's

Three nights in Shimla, three in Manali and three above Dharamsala, with two long mountain drives in between. A narrow-gauge railway in and a jacket at all times.

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Length
10 days, 9 nights
Where you stay
Shimla, Manali, Dharamsala
Places
22 across 10 days
123
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Himachal is the part of the Indian Himalaya that is easy to reach and hard to leave. Deodar forest to about 2,500 metres, bare rock and snow above it, and a scatter of towns on ridges with the Dhauladhar or the Pir Panjal filling the windows.

Two of the three stops here exist because somebody needed to get out of the heat. The British moved the entire government of India up to Shimla every summer for seventy-odd years, and half the town is still Tudor gables and cast iron. Manali grew from an apple-farming valley into the country's favourite mountain holiday. The third, McLeod Ganj above Dharamsala, is Tibetan, and has been since 1960.

What connects them is road, and there is no way round that. Both transfers are long days on mountain highway. They are also the part of the trip you will describe afterwards.

Highlights

  • The narrow-gauge line up from the plains, around a hundred tunnels in 96 kilometres
  • The house where the British Viceroys spent every summer, still full of teak and stone
  • A snow pass at 3,979 metres, open for about half the year
  • A cedar-forest temple with a four-tier wooden roof, built in 1553
  • The ridge walk above McLeod Ganj, with the Dhauladhar straight ahead of you

Where to stay

Shimla, three nights

Shimla was the summer capital of British India, which meant that for several months a year the entire government of a subcontinent ran from a ridge in the Himalayan foothills, reachable only by mule track until the railway arrived in 1903. What that left is a town of half-timbered gables, a neo-Gothic church and a mock-Tudor town hall, strung along about three kilometres of ridge at 2,200 metres.

It is also a busy Indian holiday town, and in May the promenade is packed. Stay on or near the Ridge; everything central is pedestrian, and the alternative is a very steep walk home.

Manali, three nights

About 127 km from Shimla.

Manali sits at the head of the Kullu valley with orchards below it and the Pir Panjal above, and it is the base for everything north: the pass, the tunnel, the trekking, and the road to Ladakh.

New Manali is a resort town and is not the reason to come. Old Manali, up the hill across the stream, is orchards, slate roofs, old guesthouses and cafes, and Vashist across the river has hot sulphur springs in the middle of the village. Stay in one of those two.

Dharamsala, three nights

About 82 km from Manali.

Dharamsala proper is a town in the valley. What everyone means is McLeod Ganj, 500 metres higher up, where the Dalai Lama has lived since 1960 and where the Tibetan government in exile has its offices, its library and its temple.

The result is a hill station with monks in it: prayer wheels along the road, momo stalls, meditation courses, a Tibetan cricket-mad crowd at the stadium down the hill, and the Dhauladhar rising straight out of the ridge behind, so close it feels like a wall.

Day by day

Day 1 in Shimla

Up the mountain railway, and the Ridge at dusk

The way to arrive is the toy train from Kalka. It is narrow gauge, it burrows through around a hundred tunnels on the way up, and it takes five or six hours to cover a distance a car does in three. Take the car and you will regret it for the rest of the trip.

You come out at the top on a ridge with the town on both sides of it. The Ridge itself, a broad open space with mountains at either end, is where Shimla spends its evenings, and the church at the eastern end has been there since 1846.

Do nothing else on the first day. The air is thin enough to notice on the stairs, and everything in Shimla is stairs.

  1. 17:00

    The Ridge

    Other

    The flat open stretch at the top of town, with the Himalaya visible at both ends on a clear evening. Cars are banned, everyone walks, and it fills up around six.

  2. 19:00

    Christ Church

    Religious

    Built in 1846 and reckoned the second oldest church in north India, in butter-yellow stucco at the east end of the Ridge. The stained glass represents faith, hope, charity, patience and fortitude, and it is floodlit after dark.

  3. 20:30

    Dinner on the Mall

    Eat

    The pedestrian street below the Ridge has been the town's main parade since the British built it. Himachali food is hard to find even here, so go for the room and the view rather than the menu.

With more time: If you arrive with the afternoon free, walk the length of the Mall from Scandal Point to the Oberoi Cecil and back. It takes an hour, it is entirely flat by Shimla standards, and it is the best way to work out how the town is put together.

Day 2 in Shimla

The Viceroy's house, ten thousand objects, and a very large monkey

West along the ridge first, to the mansion the Viceroys of India lived in every summer. It went up in 1888, it has electric light and an internal water system that predate most of London, and the Simla Conference of 1945 was held in its ballroom. It is now a research institute, so you see it on a guided tour of a handful of rooms, and the teak-panelled hall alone is worth the ticket.

The state museum is a few minutes away in another Raj-era house, with about ten thousand objects from across Himachal: Pahari miniature painting, wood carving and temple bronzes, laid out with no fuss at all.

Then climb, or take the ropeway, to the temple on the hill above the town. A 33 metre Hanuman stands on the summit and can be seen from most of Shimla. So can the monkeys, who are organised, fearless and will take your glasses off your face. Leave anything loose at the hotel and carry a stick, which the temple will lend you.

  1. 10:00

    Viceregal Lodge

    Architecture

    Built in 1888 under Lord Dufferin, with formal gardens on three sides and a view down the valley. Tours run through the day; the gardens are a separate and cheaper ticket if you only want the outside.

  2. 13:00

    Himachal State Museum

    Culture

    Around 10,000 objects from across the state in a reconstructed colonial house, and the Pahari miniature collection is the reason to go. Closed Mondays, and quiet on every other day.

  3. 16:00

    Jakhoo Temple

    Religious

    The highest point in Shimla, with an enormous Hanuman on top of it and the best panorama in town. Twenty minutes up the ropeway or forty-five up a steep path through the trees.

With more time: Shimla's Gaiety Theatre on the Mall opened in 1887 and is still working, complete with its original Victorian auditorium. If anything is on, it is a strange and lovely hour.

Day 3 in Shimla

A forest walk, a waterfall and the wholesale bazaar

The best thing about Shimla is that you can walk out of it into deodar forest in fifteen minutes. Today is that walk.

The path west through the sanctuary forest runs to a waterfall in a wooded gorge, which is a genuine cascade after the monsoon and a damp rock face for much of the rest of the year. Go for the forest rather than the water: this is old-growth Himalayan cedar, quiet, cold and enormous.

Come back over the hill past a small Hanuman temple with a view down both valleys, and spend the last of the afternoon in the Lower Bazaar, which runs underneath the Mall on a different level and is where Shimla actually shops. Stairs down from the promenade drop you straight into it.

  1. 09:30

    Chadwick Falls

    Visit

    About an hour and a half out through the forest, and much better in September and October than in spring. There is a permit fee for the sanctuary if you go in by the main gate.

  2. 14:00

    Sankat Mochan Temple

    Religious

    On the ridge on the way back, reachable on foot or by car, with a long view over the town and the valleys either side. Free, calm, and much less overrun than the summit temple.

  3. 17:00

    Lower Bazaar

    Other

    One level below the promenade and a completely different town: wholesale vegetables, cheap hotels, tin roofs and shouting. Open Monday to Saturday and best in the late afternoon.

With more time: The old temple at Tara Devi, about six kilometres south, is a couple of hundred years old and stands on its own hilltop with a view of the whole Shimla ridge. It makes an easy half day if the forest walk sounds like too much.

Day 4 in Manali

The long road north, a castle at Naggar, and a cave temple in the cedars

Seven to eight hours, and there is no shortcut. The road drops out of Shimla, runs down to Mandi and then up the Kullu valley beside the Beas, with the last two hours through apple orchards the good part. Leave at six.

Twenty kilometres before Manali, stop at Naggar. The old capital of the Kullu kingdom has a stone and timber castle on the hillside, built in the local earthquake-proof style of alternating wood and stone courses, and above it the house of Nicholas Roerich, the Russian painter who settled here in the 1920s and painted the Himalaya for the rest of his life. His gallery is one of the best small collections in India.

Reach Manali in the late afternoon and walk out to the temple in the cedar wood before dinner. It is a four-tiered wooden pagoda of 1553, dedicated to a demoness from the Mahabharata, and the trees around it are the point almost as much as the building.

  1. 06:00

    Drive from Shimla to Manali

    Travel

    A full day on the road via Mandi and Kullu. Take the front seat, stop at a dhaba in the valley for lunch, and expect the last stretch to be slow with holiday traffic.

  2. 13:30

    Naggar

    Visit

    A hillside castle, a Russian painter's house and an art gallery, twenty minutes off the main road. The castle terrace looks straight up the valley and there is a restaurant on it.

  3. 17:30

    Hidimba Temple

    Religious

    A cave shrine under a four-tiered wooden roof, standing in a deodar wood a short walk from the centre of Manali. Go towards dusk when the coach parties have gone and the light comes through the trees sideways.

With more time: If the drive runs long, drop Naggar and keep it for a half day later in the week. It is twenty minutes each way from Manali and works just as well as a morning.

Day 5 in Manali

Sulphur springs, the ski valley and an evening in Old Manali

Start in hot water. The village across the Beas has natural sulphur springs feeding stone bathhouses next to a stone temple, separate for men and women, free, and used by everybody. Half an hour in one at eight in the morning resets the whole trip.

Then the valley thirteen kilometres northwest, which is the town's playground: paragliding in summer, snow and a short ski lift in winter, and a great many people selling zorbing in between. It is unashamedly commercial and the setting is spectacular enough to carry it. Go early and walk uphill away from the stalls.

Finish in Old Manali, three kilometres up the hill on the other side of the stream, which is orchards, slate roofs, guesthouses and cafes with cushions on the floor. There is a ruined fort in it that nobody makes any fuss about.

  1. 08:00

    Vashist Hot Water Springs and Temple

    Visit

    Natural sulphur baths in the middle of a village, three kilometres from Manali across the river, with a temple attached. Free and always open. Take a towel and do not take valuables into the changing area.

  2. 10:30

    Solang Valley

    Nature

    Thirteen kilometres northwest, with a 300 metre ski lift and a meadow full of operators selling every activity ever invented. The ridge walk above the lift station is free and gets you away from all of it.

  3. 17:00

    Old Manali

    Visit

    Three kilometres up from the new town: apple orchards, old stone and slate houses, and the best cafes in the valley. Eat here rather than in the bazaar below.

With more time: The Beas rises at a lake about sixteen kilometres up the valley from Solang, and the walk to it is the standard day trek out of Manali. Ten hours there and back, or two days with a night camped below it.

Day 6 in Manali

Over the Pir Panjal

The high day. The road climbs from 2,000 metres to just under 4,000 in about fifty kilometres of hairpins, and the top of it is a bare saddle in the Pir Panjal with snow on it most of the year and a view north into Lahaul.

Leave before six. Permits are capped, the road is single track in places, and the traffic on a summer morning is genuinely bad. Take warm clothes whatever the forecast says at the bottom, and expect to be cold at the top even in June.

There is a waterfall on the way up, sixteen kilometres out and about 2,500 metres, which is a reasonable place to stop and let the driver rest. If the pass is shut, the tunnel underneath it goes through to the same valley in ten minutes.

  1. 06:00

    Rohtang Pass

    Nature

    3,979 metres, and the old gateway to Lahaul, Spiti and Ladakh. Open roughly May to October, closed Tuesdays for maintenance, and needing a permit arranged in advance.

  2. 12:00

    Rahala waterfalls

    Visit

    Sixteen kilometres up the pass road at about 2,500 metres, dropping in stages beside the road. Ten minutes, and the best excuse to get out of the car on the way down.

  3. 14:30

    Late lunch back in the valley

    Eat

    You will be back in Manali by mid-afternoon and hungry. Trout is farmed all along this valley and is on every menu for a reason.

With more time: If the pass is closed, take the tunnel instead and carry on to Sissu or Keylong in the Lahaul valley. It is a completely different landscape, dry, brown and Tibetan rather than green and forested, and it is under two hours from Manali now.

Day 7 in Dharamsala

West to McLeod Ganj, the temple and the Tibet Museum

The second long drive: down the Kullu valley, west through Mandi and the Kangra district, then up again. Another full day, with the last hour climbing through tea gardens and the Dhauladhar filling the windscreen.

McLeod Ganj is small, steep and immediately different from everywhere else on this trip. Prayer flags, monks in maroon, Tibetan script on the shopfronts, and a smell of incense and fried momos.

Go straight to the main temple complex when you arrive. It is the largest Tibetan temple outside Tibet, it is where the Dalai Lama teaches when he is in residence, and the circuit path around it is walked clockwise all day by people spinning prayer wheels. The museum beside it lays out, plainly and without much comfort, what happened in Tibet after 1950.

  1. 06:00

    Drive from Manali to McLeod Ganj

    Travel

    Seven or eight hours by way of Mandi and Palampur. Leave at six. The tea gardens around Palampur are the one place worth stopping for.

  2. 16:30

    Tsuglagkhang Complex

    Visit

    The Dalai Lama's temple and the largest Tibetan complex outside Tibet, with a meditation hall, a Kalachakra shrine and thangkas throughout. Walk the outer path clockwise, which is the direction everybody else is going.

  3. 18:30

    Tibet Museum

    Culture

    Small, direct and hard going: photographs, testimony and documents on the occupation of Tibet and the flight into exile. Forty minutes, and the reason the town exists.

With more time: Check whether the Dalai Lama is in residence and whether any public teachings are scheduled. They are free, they are announced on the official site weeks ahead, and you register at the branch security office in town with a passport photo.

Day 8 in Dharamsala

The Triund ridge

One long walk, and the reason many people come to Dharamsala at all. The path leaves from above Dharamkot, climbs through oak and rhododendron and then out onto open ground, and finishes on a grass ridge at just under 2,900 metres with the Dhauladhar directly in front of you, close enough to see the snow chutes.

It is about nine kilometres there and back and takes four to five hours at an ordinary pace, with tea stalls most of the way up. Start at seven; the cloud usually comes in after noon and the view goes with it.

Coming down, drop into Bhagsu for the waterfall behind the village. It is not much of a waterfall in dry months and it is the best cold swim within walking distance, which after the ridge is what matters.

  1. 07:00

    Triund

    Visit

    Four to five hours return from Dharamkot, with tea stalls at intervals and a ridge at the top you can lie down on. Camping is permitted and popular; going up for the day is the sensible version.

  2. 14:00

    Bhagsu Waterfall

    Visit

    A twenty minute walk above the village, past slate quarries and an old temple, to a fall with a pool under it. Best right after the monsoon, and busy at weekends.

  3. 19:30

    Momos in McLeod Ganj

    Eat

    The Tibetan cafes here are run by families who arrived as refugees, and several put the proceeds back into monasteries and schools. Thukpa, momos and butter tea, which is an acquired taste and worth acquiring.

With more time: If the full ridge is too much, the walk as far as Galu Devi temple takes about an hour from Dharamkot, gains a few hundred metres and has most of the view. The trail carries on from there whenever you feel like it.

Day 9 in Dharamsala

A Viceroy's grave, a cricket ground and the last of the light at Naddi

An easier day, and all of it downhill and back up again.

A kilometre below the town, in a stand of deodar, is a grey stone church of 1852 with Belgian stained glass and the grave of Lord Elgin, a Viceroy who died at Dharamsala in 1863 and asked to be buried here. The 1905 earthquake that flattened the town took the spire off it and it has never been replaced.

Further down the hill is the cricket ground, which sits at about 1,450 metres with the Dhauladhar filling the entire northern side. It is the highest international stadium in the country and the best-looking one anywhere.

Then back up for sunset at the viewpoint above town, where the range turns pink and there are telescopes on the terrace pointing at the peaks.

  1. 09:30

    St. John Cathedral in the Wilderness

    Visit

    Built in 1852 in a deodar grove a kilometre below McLeod Ganj, with the tomb of Lord Elgin in the churchyard. The Belgian stained glass survived the earthquake that took the tower off.

  2. 11:30

    HPCA Cricket Stadium

    Other

    At about 1,457 metres, and unique in India for it, with the snow range straight behind the stands. Tours run on non-match days and the ground staff will usually let you walk the boundary.

  3. 17:30

    Naddi View Point

    Visit

    Five kilometres above town, and the classic view of the Dhauladhar from end to end. Telescopes on the terrace for a few rupees, and the light in the last half hour is the whole reason to be there.

With more time: The Tibetan library on the road down to Gangchen Kyishong holds the largest collection of Tibetan manuscripts outside Tibet and runs philosophy and language classes that visitors can sit in on. There is a small museum upstairs with bronzes and thangkas.

Day 10 in Dharamsala

Down from the hills

Gaggal airport is about forty minutes below the town and flies to Delhi in an hour and a bit, weather permitting, which in the monsoon it frequently does not. Overnight buses and a train from Pathankot are the reliable alternatives.

Before you go down, walk the temple circuit one more time. It starts before six, the prayer wheels are already turning, and the mountains behind the ridge get the light a long time before the town does.

  1. 06:30

    The morning kora

    Note

    The circuit path around the temple complex, walked clockwise, takes about half an hour. Nobody minds visitors joining it as long as you go the right way.

  2. 09:00

    To Gaggal airport or the valley

    Travel

    Forty minutes down to the airport, an hour to Kangra for the train. Allow more in the monsoon, when the road down is regularly slowed by landslip repairs.

Before you go

When to go

Two seasons work. March to June is the classic one, warm on the ridges, everything open by late May including the high passes. September to November is quieter, clearer and colder, with the best mountain views of the year in October.

July and August are the monsoon, which in this terrain means landslides, road closures and cloud where the view should be. December to February brings snow, which is beautiful in Shimla and Manali and closes Rohtang completely.

Getting there and around

Come in by train. The narrow-gauge line from Kalka to Shimla climbs about 1,500 metres in 96 kilometres, takes five to six hours, and is a UNESCO site in its own right. Kalka is four hours from Delhi by fast train, so the whole journey is doable in a day if you start early.

After that it is road. Shimla to Manali is seven to eight hours, Manali to Dharamsala much the same. Hire a car with a driver, leave at six, and do not plan anything for the evening you arrive. Overnight buses run both routes if you would rather sleep through them, and there are small airports at Bhuntar near Manali and Gaggal near Dharamsala if you would rather not do the roads at all.

Altitude, and what to pack

Shimla is at about 2,200 metres, Manali 2,000, McLeod Ganj 2,100. None of that is high enough to cause altitude problems for most people, but it is high enough to be genuinely cold after dark in any month, including June.

Take a warm layer and proper shoes. Every town here is built on a slope, the pavements are steps, and most of what is worth doing involves walking uphill.

Rohtang, and the permit

The pass above Manali needs a permit, the daily number is capped, and you book it online a day or two ahead through the Himachal transport department. Your driver or hotel will usually do it for you, and it is worth asking before you arrive.

It opens some time in May and shuts in October or November, exact dates depending on the snow. If it is closed, the Atal Tunnel underneath it comes out in the Lahaul valley on the far side and stays open through the winter, which makes a different landscape entirely reachable in an afternoon.

The mountains are the reason and they are not always visible. Cloud sits on these valleys for days at a time, and then it lifts at six in the morning and there is a wall of snow four kilometres high where nothing was yesterday.

Ten days is enough to be there for two or three of those mornings. Get up for them.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is ten days enough for Himachal?
For these three towns, yes, and it is about the minimum given the drives. Adding Spiti, which is the most extraordinary part of the state, needs at least another week and a tolerance for altitude above 4,000 metres.
How bad are the road transfers really?
Seven to eight hours each, on mountain highway, with roadworks. They are tiring rather than frightening, and a good driver makes all the difference. Overnight buses cover both routes if you would rather sleep through them.
Do I need to book Rohtang Pass in advance?
Yes. Permits are capped daily and booked online through the state transport department, usually a day or two ahead. Hotels and drivers arrange it routinely, so ask when you book the car.
Will I see the Dalai Lama?
Only if he is in residence and teaching, which is announced weeks ahead on the official website. Public teachings are free and you register in town beforehand. He travels a great deal, so treat it as a bonus rather than a plan.
Is the toy train worth it?
Yes, and it is the single best way into Shimla. Five to six hours, around a hundred tunnels, and seats that need booking well ahead in season. The alternative is the same climb by road in a shared taxi.
When does the snow arrive?
Usually December in Shimla and Manali, and it can last into March. The high passes shut from around November. Snow is a large part of why Indian visitors come, so the towns are busiest, not quietest, in it.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it and shift the nights. The one thing to keep is the direction: Shimla, Manali, Dharamsala runs roughly downhill and westwards, and doing it the other way puts the longest drive on your first tired day.