My 2019 McLeod: what’s good for you?

Have a great day out at Peepal Farm: stray animal
rescue and vegan organic farm

In case you visit magical McLeod Ganj without first attending the planned 60-hour slide night at my place – here are my recommendations and tips for visiting McLeod culled from my time here in 2019.

Some old favourites have retained their rankings this year:

• RK Barbers’ Amid is still the best hair cutter in town in my opinion, with the added value of providing one the best chair massages ever. How did he know I had a sore back and strained lower arms that day?
• Mukti, still an eyebrow artist with his careful re-dying to threading. But he carries a grudge that I get my haircut somewhere else.
• Surinder and the team at Kailwood Guest House dispense the best fruit porridge and support for their guests with taxi bookings, travel advice (thanks for warning me off trying to get to Dalhousie in the snow) and IT repairs. Plus the valley view from the deck is still the best view in town.

Great day out

Visit Peepal Farm on one of their cow cuddling open days, or just drop in to visit this combined animal rescue shelter and organic farm. The owners and volunteers have developed a beautiful spot on used-to-be derelict land where they are nurse and either re-home or adopt dogs, cats and farm animals. Eat vegan snacks and buy some of their great produce. Watch out for posters around town or find them on Facebook. The farm is 13 km from Dharamsala, in Dhanotu Village.

1 wedding, 2 magpies and 3 cups of chai tea = a great day out

Mcleod Ganj suddenly turned on its best sparkling champagne winter on 1 December, the day after I bought a pair of post-mortem rubber gloves for a nun in long-term retreat.  A great time to go for a hike. 

Local Ghadi women in party clothes, Dharamkot

So Julia put aside her studies and translations and I shelve my editing and writing projects and we agreed to meet at the Himalayan Tea House at Dharamkot to walk up to Gallu Falls – likely to be full of water after the torrential rains of the past week.

Long-term blog readers will already know that the HTH serves one of the best aloo paranthas in Himachal Pradesh but I have already started the day with a bowl of Surinder’s banana porridge so I just sip excellent masala chai (#1) while I wait for Julia.

Kareri Lake: Where vultures meditate

Happy hikers but no glacier: R-L Sue, Fiona and I

There’s breakfast making noises around 5 am – always a comfort. But where am I? This isn’t my room in McLeod Ganj. 

That’s because I arrived at the rather splendid Royal Mountain Guest House in the village of Kareri after dark last night with Fiona and Sue; today we are going to hike up and back to fabled glacier-fed Kareri Lake.

We are ready to be up and gone so after eating banana porridge and chai while seated primly on the brocade three-piece suite in my ballroom size room, we do ridiculous stretches in the dawn courtyard then jump into a tiny battered Maruti to bounce up the hill for 15 minutes. Judder past the local school that Fiona and Sue and the Pencil Tree mob support, past a wedding Maruti studded with marigold blossoms and stop at the empty momo carts at the bridge over the rushing mountain river.