No more laziness. The second day in McLeod Ganj we decided to do something more active. Breakfast working session has almost become a part of our routine. (To be honest that is the only thing we might describe as a routine). But once we get some wi-fi connection (a steady connection, not even speaking of fast connection, is quite a challenge in India) the breakfast time tend to prolong until noon. After finishing our online duties, we walked to Bhagsu waterfall. To get there we first crossed the town of Bhagsu. McLeod Ganj is made out of the main square and 4 streets radiating out of it along the hill. There is a very big Tibetan community. The street sides are full with small shops selling Tibetan jewellery, textiles, tankas and buddhist ritual attributes. Rest of the space is occupied by guest houses and cafes and restaurants with mixed Tibetan, Indian and European cuisine. Even though there is quite strong tourists oriented market, it is still more lovely than Bhagsu.
We crossed the town and found our way up to the waterfall. Very much like for all in Dharamsala, the waterfall too was out of season. It was still there, but not as impressive as on the photos we had seen. It is definitely not a site where we wanted to hang around for long. It was around 1pm. We decided to hike up the mountain Triund. We had heard that the top of it offers a wonderful view to the real mountains and their snowy peeks. You can spot few peeks from McLeod Ganj too, but it is not the same, is it!?
Very smartly we google that somewhere not far from Bhagsu is a path that should take us to the Triund trail. It was not hard to find the beginning of the path. It went through the upper part of the town and we could easily follow on google maps. The rest was getting lost and guessing the road up the hill on and on again. After a very steep and rocky climb and about 1,5 hours later we finally got on the real Triund trail. Indian man working at a small food stand just before the real path informed us that getting to the top takes about 3/3,5 hours. By that time it was already pretty clear to us, that we would not make it to the top and back before the dark. But we were up for trying to get at least to the “Magic view cafe”, that was indicated in google maps as the end of the trail (it is actually only the half way to the top). The hike was quite exhausting for us. The path is constantly climbing. One can not call it hard, but we knew that we would not like to do it in dark. So we kept moderate pace without many stops. You get a very nice view over the hills and wally, but you start to see the real mountains only when coming closer to the half of the trail, which was our turning point for heading back down.
As a reward for the climb we got our selves a bar of overpriced Snickers and Mars from the same Magic view cafe. We had hiked up the hills for more than 4 hours.
Going back down turned out to take much longer than we thought. We also took another road that was leading along Dharamkot through a rocky path in a forest. That was much nicer han the steep climb we did earlier that day. With the sun setting we settled us down in the cafe “Common Grounds” for a good and healthy meal. We had our lunch there already the day before. We came back for some more good Asian veg dishes. I had steamed cabbage stuffed with veggies and tofu and a tasty, tasty soup, Stijn had fried rice with egg and veggies. In McLeod Ganj there are many options for good food for a very good price. There is a wide selection of Tibetan restaurants, as well as Indian, Asian and European inspired places, most of them offering a selection from all mentioned. We also went for a desert in Lion Snow café. A chocolate fudge cake for Stijn and apple pie for me. A reward good enough for a day hiking in the hills.
Beautiful pictures. It is truly a mesmerizing place.
Your experience sounds just wow. Amazing place with mouth watering food. I too visited Mcleodganj twice and wrote an article about how we 3 friends enjoyed the whole journey.
Buddy being a Landscape photographer myself I must say that first picture of mountains is breathtaking.
Hi Parvesh, thank you very much for reading our article and taking your time to leave a comment. Thanks for the compliments too. We are looking forward to visit this place once again 🙂
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