Himalayan Heritage & Sacred Landscapes

The old hill road from Punjab to Himachal, taken slowly. You start with the Golden Temple’s kitchen at first light, then climb into deodar country: the Dalai Lama’s temple at McLeod Ganj, tea gardens…

Length: 12 days, 11 nights
From: ₹2,75,000 per person
Pace: Balanced
Stops: 6
Best months: March to June, September to November

The route

6 stops over 12 days

Delhi
Amritsar
Dharamsala
Palampur
Manali
Shimla

Dawn seva in the Golden Temple’s langar kitchen, Amritsar
Morning prayers at Tsuglagkhang with the Namgyal monks
Tea tasting among Palampur’s Kangra bushes below the Dhauladhar
The Triund ridge walk, nine kilometres of oak and rhododendron
Kalka to Shimla by toy train, through tunnels and pine

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 12 days
Stops: 6
Pace: Balanced
From: ₹2,75,000

1

Delhi

Arrive Delhi

Your journey begins at Indira Gandhi International, where our representative meets you past customs and drives you to the hotel: twenty-five minutes at 3am, an hour by daylight. Nothing is scheduled. If you land early and sleep well, walk the Lodhi Garden tombs before dusk, when parakeets take the fig trees and the light goes copper on the Bara Gumbad.

Night: The Imperial, New Delhi
2B D

Amritsar

North to Amritsar and the Golden Temple

An early flight north to Amritsar, an hour over the wheat plains. Afternoon at Jallianwala Bagh, where the bullet marks are still in the brickwork, then the Golden Temple at dusk: the marble underfoot cold, the shabad kirtan running without pause. Later, the langar kitchen feeds some 50,000 people a day. Dinner is Amritsari kulcha and a glass of lassi on Lawrence Road.

Night: Ranjit’s Svaasa, Amritsar
3B D

Dharamsala

Over the plains to Dharamsala

Back to the Golden Temple at 5am for the Palki Sahib, when the Guru Granth Sahib is carried in on a gold palanquin. Then the road east: two hundred kilometres and five and a half hours through Pathankot, the Dhauladhar rising abruptly at the end of it. Arrive McLeod Ganj by mid-afternoon; the air is ten degrees cooler and smells of pine resin.

Night: Hyatt Regency Dharamshala
4B

Dharamsala

McLeod Ganj: temple, thangkas and debate

Tsuglagkhang opens early. Monks from Namgyal Monastery debate in the courtyard around eleven, clapping to punctuate an argument, and you are welcome to watch. Afternoon at Norbulingka Institute, where thangka painters work with brushes of a few squirrel hairs and metalworkers beat copper for statues. End at St John in the Wilderness, a Gothic church of 1852 with Belgian stained glass among the deodars.

Night: Hyatt Regency Dharamshala
5B L

Dharamsala

The Triund ridge walk

The Triund walk: nine kilometres up from Galu Devi through oak and rhododendron to a grass ridge at 2,875 metres, with the Dhauladhar wall directly above and the Kangra valley spread below. Four hours up, two and a half down, with a packed lunch and a flask of Kangra tea. If knees object, we swap in Bhagsu waterfall and the Gyuto monastery instead.

Night: Hyatt Regency Dharamshala
6B D

Palampur

Short hop to Palampur tea country

A short transfer this morning, barely an hour, with a stop at Bir for the paragliding launch site and the Tibetan colony’s Chokling monastery. Palampur sits at 1,270 metres in tea country planted by the Scots in the 1850s. Walk the Neugal Khad gorge before dinner; on a clear evening the Dhauladhar catches the last light and turns briefly pink.

Night: Taragarh Palace Hotel, Palampur
7B L

Palampur

Kangra tea, Baijnath and Andretta

Morning in a working Kangra tea garden with a planter: two leaves and a bud, the withering troughs, the rolling table, then a proper tasting of the light green Kangra orthodox. Afternoon at Baijnath’s Shiva temple, stone-carved in 1204 and still in daily use, and at Andretta, where Gurcharan Singh’s pottery studio still throws slipware. Cold beer on the verandah after.

Night: Taragarh Palace Hotel, Palampur
8B D

Manali

The long road to Manali

The hardest driving day of the trip: roughly 250 kilometres and seven to eight hours via Mandi and the Kullu valley, following the Beas upstream. We start at seven with a thermos. Lunch at Kullu, a look at the Naggar Castle woodwork if we are running early, then Manali by evening. Apple orchards, cedar smoke, and the river loud enough to hear from bed.

Night: The Himalayan, Manali
9B

Manali

Cedar temples of the Kullu valley

Hadimba Devi temple first, a 1553 pagoda of cedar and slate built round a boulder, with dark forest and a smell of woodsmoke. Then Old Manali’s stone houses and the Manu temple, and the Vashisht hot springs if you fancy the sulphur. Afternoon free for the Solang meadows or the walk up to Jogini falls. Trout and siddu for dinner.

Night: The Himalayan, Manali
10B D

Shimla

Down the Beas and up to Shimla

Another long one, and we will not pretend otherwise: eight to nine hours down the Beas and up again through Mandi, Sundernagar and Bilaspur, roughly 250 kilometres of switchbacks. Break at Sundernagar lake. You reach Shimla at dusk, the ridge lit and the church clock striking, and the last stretch to the hotel is on foot or by hotel buggy.

Night: The Oberoi Cecil, Shimla
11B

Shimla

Shimla’s ridge and the toy train

The Viceregal Lodge at Observatory Hill, where the 1947 partition maps were argued over; the teak staircase and the burnt-brick Elizabethan bulk of it repay a guided round. Christ Church and the Gaiety Theatre after, then the Kalka-Shimla toy train down to Solan, an hour and a bit of tunnels and pine, with the car meeting you at the platform.

Night: The Oberoi Cecil, Shimla
12B

Shimla to Delhi

Chandigarh, Delhi and departure

Departure day. The road down to Chandigarh takes about three and a half hours through Solan and Pinjore, dropping 2,000 metres and twenty degrees. From Chandigarh you fly to Delhi, an hour, and connect to your international flight, or we hold a day room near the airport if the gap is long. Our team sees you through check-in and says goodbye.

Night: Departure day, no overnight