Dalhousie

In 1854 the British acquired five hills from the Raja of Chamba — Kathlog, Potreyn, Tehra, Bakrota and Balun — and built a convalescent station for soldiers and officials, naming it after the departing Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie. It never became a summer capital like Shimla, which is the best thing that happened to it. The churches, schools and cottages stayed, the crowds mostly went elsewhere, and the deodar forest was left largely standing.

The town has a few borrowed ghosts. Rabindranath Tagore came here as a boy with his father; Subhas Chandra Bose spent several months recovering his health here in 1937, and a spring near Panchpula is named for him. Today Dalhousie is part hill station, part boarding-school town, and on a weekday in May it can still feel as if it is waiting for someone to arrive.

Dalhousie is the Raj chapter; the real history is down the valley in Chamba, a mountain kingdom founded more than a thousand years ago on the Ravi. Its Laxmi Narayan temples are stone shikharas from the tenth century onward, the Bhuri Singh Museum holds Pahari miniature paintings and carved fountain slabs, and Chamba rumals — handkerchiefs embroidered so finely in double satin stitch that both sides look the same — are still made by a few families. In late July or August the Minjar fair fills the town for a week, ending with tassels of maize silk offered to the river.

The food is the Chambyali dham, a feast served on leaf plates at weddings and festivals: rice, rajma, madra of chickpeas slow-cooked in yoghurt, and a sweet of rice and jaggery. Take home a bottle of chukh, the fierce local chilli paste, and use it sparingly.

Walk the Bakrota round — the level road around the upper hill — early in the morning, when the snow peaks of the Pir Panjal show through the deodars. Khajjiar is lovely, but go on a weekday and skip the zorbing and pony touts by walking straight to the far side of the meadow. Dainkund is the highest point near town and a short hike from the road, with a view over three valleys on a clear day. And give Chamba a full day; it is too often treated as a photo stop.

The deodars are why the town is worth visiting, and every new hotel on a steep slope costs some of them; prefer the old cottages and existing guesthouses. Kalatop is a wildlife sanctuary, not a picnic ground — keep the volume down and your rubbish with you. Buy rumals and chukh from the people who make them in Chamba rather than the Mall shops.

Dalhousie's natural partner is Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj, a few hours east along the Dhauladhar: the same mountains, but a Tibetan town in exile, monasteries and much more going on in the evenings.