Dalhousie & Khajjiar

Lord Dalhousie's officers chose five hills, Kathalagh, Potreyn, Terah, Bakrota and Bhangora, for a sanatorium in 1854, and the town still wears that plan: bungalows with names like Snowdon and Rosemount, St. John's Church of 1863 at Gandhi Chowk, St. Francis Church of 1894 at Subhash Chowk, and Mall roads that contour rather than climb.

Subhash Baoli marks the spring where Netaji Bose recovered in 1937, and the Panchpula stream feeds the town's water. Above, Dainkund at 2,755 m is a walk through grass and wind to the Pholani Devi shrine and a panorama that includes the Chamba valley, the Ravi and the whole Pir Panjal. Khajjiar, through the Kalatop Wildlife Sanctuary's cedar forest, is a ring of pasture a little over a kilometre long with a small lake in its middle and deodars around its rim; a Swiss envoy in 1992 put up a signboard calling it Mini Switzerland, and the name stuck.

Its Khajji Nag temple, from the twelfth century, has carved wooden pillars and images of the Pandavas, and horses and zorbing fill the meadow on weekends. Chamba, 55 km on, is the older story: the Laxmi Narayan temple group from the tenth century, the Bhuri Singh Museum with its Pahari miniatures and embroidered Chamba rumals, the Chaugan green, and in July the Minjar fair when the town throws maize silk into the Ravi. A day here moves from church bells to temple bells in a single drive.