The first thing you notice in McLeodganj is not a view. It is a sound. A low, steady whirr of prayer wheels being turned by a hundred hands, somewhere between the bus stand and the temple road. Then the smell of juniper smoke. Then, only then, the Dhauladhar range, standing white and enormous above the rooftops as if someone had pinned it to the sky.
People call it Little Lhasa, and the name is earned. Since the Dalai Lama settled here in 1960, this small ridge above Dharamshala has become the heart of the Tibetan community in exile. You will hear Tibetan, Hindi, Punjabi, Hebrew and a dozen European accents on the same street. It is busy, a little chaotic, and quietly devotional underneath it all.
The Lingkor, the circumambulation path around the Tsuglagkhang complex, is the best introduction to McLeodganj you will get. Go early, around sunrise. Elderly Tibetans walk it every morning with prayer beads in one hand, murmuring mantras, stopping to spin rows of brass wheels. Prayer flags are strung through the deodar trees above you. Nobody asks you to do anything. You just walk clockwise, and you fall into their rhythm.
It takes about half an hour if you don't stop. You will stop.
The Tsuglagkhang complex holds the main temple, Namgyal Monastery and the Tibet Museum. If you visit in the afternoon, you may catch monks debating in the courtyard: a clap of the hands, a stamp of the foot, a question flung across the stone floor. It looks like an argument. It is a centuries-old method of study.
Give the Tibet Museum an unhurried hour. It is small and it is not easy viewing, but it will change how you see every maroon robe on the street afterwards.
A short walk east takes you to Bhagsunag, an old Shiva temple with a spring-fed pool, and beyond it the Bhagsu waterfall. Keep climbing and you reach Dharamkot, a village of cafés, meditation centres and terraced fields where the pace drops by half. The trail from here towards Triund starts to feel like real mountains.
Westward, the road to Naddi passes the small Dal Lake, ringed by deodars. On a still evening the mountains sit in the water.
Hidden in the cedar forest on the way down to Forsyth Ganj is a stone church from the 1850s, with Belgian stained glass and an old graveyard full of British names. It is a strange, beautiful stop, a reminder that this ridge was a colonial hill station long before it became Little Lhasa.
We plan our Himachal journeys so you see McLeodganj the way it deserves to be seen: on foot, early in the morning, with time to sit. If you would like to walk the kora with us, take a look at our upcoming Himachal departures.
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