A local's alternate sightseeing day in Dharamshala

The standard sightseeing tour hits seven stops in a morning, spends eleven minutes at each, and deposits you back at your hotel with nothing you can tell a friend about. Here is a day we would actually give to a visiting cousin. It starts slow and ends with a view.

Start at St. John in the Wilderness

The 1852 Anglican church in Forsyth Ganj is usually empty on weekdays. The stained glass is original, donated by Lady Elgin after her husband, the Viceroy, was buried in the churchyard. The wooden pews sit under cedar beams that have survived two major earthquakes. This is not a twenty-minute tourist stop. Sit in a pew. Read the inscriptions on the stones in the small cemetery outside. It tells you more about British India than a book would.

Walk, do not drive, down to Norbulingka

Norbulingka Institute is the academy where Tibetan art is being actively preserved. Thangka painters, wood carvers, and metal workers still apprentice here. The garden is Japanese in influence and has a cafe at one corner with the best momos in the valley. Plan two hours, not forty minutes. If a workshop is running, you can watch an artist at work without being ushered.

Eat where the monks eat

Lhasa Kitchen near the Tsuglagkhang complex is not a secret, but tourists tend to go to the better-signposted places. The monks who eat there like that it is quiet and the thukpa is honest. Skip the Western menu. Order thenthuk if you have a stomach for ginger and the weather is cold.

Climb to Naddi at golden hour

Everyone goes to Naddi for sunset. The secret is that the panorama is slightly better from Kareri road, another kilometre up. Ask your driver, or walk it. The view opens past Gaj Peak and includes the profile of the Kangra Valley floor that Naddi itself does not quite show.

End at a tea house, not a cafe

Most Western-style cafes in McLeod Ganj play the same soundtrack and serve the same avocado toast. If you want tea, there is a small Tibetan tea house behind the Dalai Lama complex that serves po cha, the traditional butter tea. It is an acquired taste. That is the point.