McLeod Ganj
Also called 'Little Lhasa' or 'Dhasa' by the large population of Tibetans settled here.
All shops sell Tibetan and Buddhist handicrafts ranging from woollens to keychains and magnets having Buddhist symbols for good luck. One can buy ‘singing bowls’,
traditional Tibetan clothes, leather bands
and jewellery.
It is a fun walk through the vibrant marketplace.
The lanes are very crowded during the late evenings and nights.
Avoid getting your personal vehicle unless you have a driver.
There are many restaurants and hotels in the square where one can enjoy Tibetan food like Thukpa, Mokthuk and Momos. Roadside stalls also throng the market, especially near the Dalai Lama temple.
Tibetan street food
Tibetan food seems low caloric and very light on the tummy. The House of Tibet, prominently located at the Chowk, is a good capacity restaurant and well known for its Tibetan cuisine. Kalimpong restaurant is a nondescript eatery with just 3-4 tables but won’t disappoint you.
Laphing/Lapping
It is a spicy cold mung bean starch noodle dish in Tibetan cuisine. It can be eaten with red pepper chili, coriander and green onion sauce. The noodles have a slippery texture.
It can be yellow or white.
Tingmo
These are steamed rice buns with vegetable stuffings.
Thukpa
It’s a noodle soup in Tibetan cuisine. The main ingredients are wheat flour dough, mixed vegetables and some pieces of mutton or yak meat.
Thenthunk is a type of Thukpa with flat noodles.
Mokthuk
It is momos served in a bowl of soup with vegetables.
Dharamshala cable car
The ropeway reduces the distance between the two tourist spots - Dharamshala and McleodGanj by 9 kilometres and saves around 40 per cent of the travel time.
The 1.8 kilometres monocable detachable ropeway project can carry 1000 passengers per hour per direction. The cost of one-way travel for one person is fixed at ₹ 300, and the two-way tariff is ₹ 500 per person.
It is very well maintained and a tourist attraction but a disappointment to the locals who were expecting an inexpensive way to travel when the ropeway was being built.
It gets crowded with tourists during the second half of the day during weekends.
The Dalai Lama temple
Namgyal Monastery (also often referred to as "Dalai Lama's Temple") is currently located in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala, India. It is the personal monastery of the 14th Dalai Lama.
Monks clad in maroon robes sit in a hall and chant mantras in front of the Buddha statue.
The resonating chants, the rows of rotating ornate prayer wheels, and the colourful benevolent golden Buddha statue add a charm to this temple complex.
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