Dharamsala, or more specifically McLeod Ganj, is the home of the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile, a large Tibetan refugee population and hundreds of street vendors selling “momos”, little rice parcels filled with vegetables, fried in oil, and other Tibetan inspired fare.

The bus journey to Dharamsala winds up the foothills from Pathankot train station for about 5 hours. Then another bus serves the last 10km of even tighter bends up to McLeod Ganj.

The area is full of Tibetan Buddhist monks who travel here as pilgrims to hear the Dalai Lama teach, to debate and to visit the Buddhist temple outside the Dalai Lama’s residence. Unfortunately, when I arrive the Dalai Lama is away somewhere else in the state and will then fly off to USA to teach in various locations, meaning I won’t get to see him!

Nevertheless, the place is teeming with monks and there is one area where they all congregate to debate. Strangely, Buddhist debate is not quite as peaceful as you would expect. They stand in circles, shouting at each other at the top of their voices and clapping hard out in front of them once they feel they have made their point. And there are so many of them, at first hearing it sounds like a school playground. If only I could understand what they were saying!

Next stop, Manali. Further north and at a higher altitude to Dharamsala. Get ready for the cold!

The night minibus arrives in New Manali at around 6am and I take an Auto-Rickshaw up to Old Manali, about 5 minutes away on the River Beas.

The scenery is spectacular, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and forests, but after the 35°c heat of Amritsar, it’s unbearably cold! Luckily, all the shops sell the coolest socks I’ve ever seen, with a delegate big toe, so you can wear sandals or flip flops at the same time. Awesome.

I decided that I wanted to do some trekking and one of the adventure offices put me in touch with a German called Paul who is also looking for a group to do some trekking with. We get something to eat at Sunshine Cafe, the best restaurant in the whole of Manali, and decide to have a look around all the offices in the morning and decide upon our options.

We decide, after much deliberation, to join up with an Israeli couple, Amit and Adi, who want to do some snowboarding. But, by the morning we are leaving, there’s a group of 8 of us going including two Russians, Tony and Ruslan, a Frenchman called Benjamin, and a Belgian called Wiske (pronounced Whiskey).

The snowboarding trip was a lot of fun, although trekking for 5 hours to 4000m above sea level to snowboard for 10 minutes is not my idea of a good cost:benefit ratio. We had a couple of bottles of whiskey and spent both nights around a camp fire singing songs of our home countries, including the Nepalese cook and porters. The food also was very good, we never went hungry and we had something different to eat for every meal.

After 3 days and 2 nights, we packed up our things and hiked the hour long route back to the road and the awaiting minibus. It seems that the Nepalese porter wasn’t that used to these kinds of minibus rides on windy roads, and he decided to keep it to himself that he wasn’t feeling very well, before hurling up through my window and over my shoulder. Lovely.

Back in Manali, we all had dinner and drinks together at the Sunshine Cafe, including our snowboard guide Kishu, before Benjamin and I decided to join him for more drinks, to listen to Coke Studio (an MTV India production where they take people out of villages, take them to a recording studio and modernise their traditional songs), and to try on silly hats.

The next place I really wanted to visit was Rishikesh, the self-proclaimed world capital of yoga, something I’ve never done before. But it’s quite far, so I decided to stop in Shimla first.

Shimla was the British summer capital in the time of the Raj, and is situated on a ridge around 2200m above sea level. It contains a lot of British architecture as well as a huge white church and Hindu temple devoted to the monkey god Hanuman, and appropriately surrounded by aggressive rhesus macaques. Alongside Manali, it is one of the top tourism spots for Indians to visit during the summer and favourite honeymoon destination.

After a visit to the temple, at the top of a very steep hill, to see the huge 50 foot Hanuman statue, I decided to check out Wake & Bake, a cafe with a view over the valley which someone on Facebook told me to check out. Whilst inside, I am joined on the rooftop by Abhi, a 20 year old Indian who is studying to become and electrical engineer in Punjab. We get chatting, exchange numbers and decide to meet later.

When I call Abhi he comes to meet me with his two girl friends, which I find very odd because its unusual to see young unmarked mixed groups around. Abhi explains that Shimla is one of the only places in India where they would get away with it. They all seem like very well educated and liberal young people and they all speak impeccable English.

We go to get something to eat and Abhi insists on paying for us all. He explains that his full name in Hindi means ‘welcoming’ and that’s what he intends to do.

At about 6pm the girls have to leave, this is India after all, so we all have some photos together. Apparently, the style in India is to take photos at a jaunty angle for effect.

Once the girls have departed, Abhi and I go for a drink at a bar called Splash. It’s well off the beaten track and he says that no foreigners really go there. We order a couple of beers and soon I’m being convinced not to leave for Rishikesh in the morning but to get the bus to Solan, his home town, which is on the way to Chandigarh. A phone call with his mother, an English teacher at a school in Solan, confirms the arrangement and I agree to meet him the next day and travel to his hometown together.

We stay in the bar for an hour or so and mostly discuss politics and the fact that Abhi isn’t a proud Indian. I try to find out why and he says that all India has to be proud of is its culture. He outlines the things that he doesn’t like about India; the corruption, the way women are treated, the controlling nature of families, their negative opinion of the west… The list goes on. I want to argue with him but he’s clearly a very liberal-minded, forward-thinking, well-educated (is that enough hyphenated adjectives?) young Indian, and his mind is made up. I decide that I like him for this, and I feel a little less concerned about travelling 60km the next day to see someone I’ve only just met.

Shimla is a great place, if a little expensive. I’m looking forward to visiting Solan today, and it will also give me a chance to visit Yash and Usha in Chandigarh again, which will be great.

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