Little Lhasa in the Himalayas — the Dalai Lama's exile home, thukpa noodle soup, Tibetan medicine, and views of the Dhauladhar ridge
McLeod Ganj is a hill station in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh — at 1,457m on the lower slopes of the Dhauladhar mountain range (the southernmost foothills of the western Himalayas, rising dramatically to 4,000–5,000m directly behind the town). The town is the seat of the Central Tibetan Administration — the government-in-exile of Tibet, relocated here after the 14th Dalai Lama's flight from Lhasa in 1959 following the Chinese military takeover. The Dalai Lama's residence and the Tsuglagkhang Complex (the Namgyal Monastery and the Dalai Lama's temple) are the spiritual centre of the…
McLeod Ganj was a British colonial hill station — the town (lower and upper sections) was established by the British and named after David McLeod, a lieutenant governor of Punjab in the 1850s. It was largely abandoned after a 1905 earthquake; it remained a quiet hill town until 1960 when the Indian government offered it as the site for the Dalai Lama's exile administration. The Tibetan exile community began arriving immediately after the 1959 Lhasa Uprising; their presence has grown to make Dharamshala (the lower town, 5km below McLeod Ganj) one of the most culturally distinctive cities in In…