Must see attractions in Dharamsala

McLeod's main focus for visiting pilgrims, monks and most tourists is the Tsuglagkhang complex, a custard-coloured concrete monastic village that's home…

Soothingly set amid bamboo, trees and flowing water, the delightful Norbulingka Institute, 6km southeast of Dharamsala, was established in 1988 to teach…

This must-see, two-storey museum sets out to remind visitors of Tibet's history as an independent nation, mourning the Chinese occupation (since 1949) and…

Men-Tsee-Khang is an organisation established to preserve the traditional arts of Tibetan medicine and astrology. The Gangchen Kyishong branch includes a…

Inside the government-in-exile compound, nearly 2km downhill from the Tsuglagkhang complex, the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives began life as a…

Standing in for the 1474 Tibet original, this large monastic complex forms an attractive scene backed by mountainscape at Sidhbari village (7km from…

Three floors of displays explain the sophisticated sciences of Tibetan astrology and medicine.

Visiting the Tsuglagkhang clockwise, as is required by Buddhist convention, you pass a prostrating area then a door leads into the westernmost building,…

Upstairs in the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives is a small but interesting cultural museum with statues, old Tibetan artefacts and books, and a couple…

Spiritually (if certainly not architecturally) the Tsuglagkhang's 1969 central temple room is the exiles’ concrete equivalent of the Jokhang temple in…

About as far as you can drive into Dharamsala's rugged mountain backdrop, the tiny temple of Gallu Devi is a good destination for a short but satisfying…

Amid tall cedars 1.5km west of McLeod, this brooding Gothic church dates from 1852, and though rebuilt after the 1905 earthquake which destroyed its tower…

The Museum of Kangra Art displays some fine miniature paintings from the Kangra school, along with traditional costumes and photos from the devastating…

Bhagsu's small, 16th-century Shiva temple would be forgettable but for the cold, clean, spring-fed pool out front. This has been enlarged into an open-air…

A charity that assists current and former Tibetan political prisoners, Gu-Chu-Sum has a gallery displaying harrowing photos chronicling oppression in…

This flourishing arts school keeps traditional Tibetan dance, music and colourful folk opera (lhamo) very much alive among the exile community. Irregular…

From Bhagsu's Shiva temple pools, a well-paved 1km path leads up the streamside to Bhagsu waterfall, most impressive during the monsoon.

At the base of a long flight of steps off of Nowrojee Rd, this peaceful gompa was built in 1987 to replace the original Dip Tse Chokling Gompa in Tibet,…

Ringed by colourful prayer wheels, this recently built temple between Temple and Jogiwara Rds is generally known as the Chorten (Tibetan for stupa), since…

Small but awesomely kitsch: inside Vashnu Mata Temple you climb into the very claustrophobic inner grotto through a concrete lion's mouth and emerge…