After having a yummy breakfast at Roshan house, we first checked out St. John’s church in McLeod Gunj. We couldn’t get inside the church, and there wasn’t much to do other than snap a few pictures outside.
Afterwards, we were dropped off at the Dalai Lama temple complex in Dharamshala. The complex consists of a museum on Tibet, some Buddhist shrines, a meditation hall and school, and the residence of the Dalai Lama (when he’s here). We were able to see the shrines and museum in a couple of hours.
It was a rainy and foggy day, which gave a serene look to the entire monastery.
After spending the morning admiring the Buddhist culture, we continued our drive into Punjab. We stopped at a roadside food stall for lunch.
We reached Amritsar in the early evening, after 4 hours of driving. We checked into the AirBnB that I had booked. I did not like the place very much, so I’m not going to recommend it here. The only plus was that it was very close to the attractions and restaurants, in the old city, so I would recommend booking a place close to Jallianwalah bagh.
After settling into our place, we walked around the nearby open mall. The market around Jallianwalah Bagh was pedestrian friendly, with several shops, stalls, and restaurants, all the way until the Golden Temple.
We walked the pedestrian mall until the Golden Temple, which was lit up for the evening. The weather in Amritsar was insanely hot (even in the evening), and was a huge contrast from Manali. We could barely stay outside for more than 15 minutes.
We finally decided it was time for dinner, and headed to the famous Brothers Dhaba. We ordered their Thali, which came with an assortment of vegetarian dishes. Everything tasted yummy, but super rich of oil and butter. I could feel my arteries clogging!
After dinner, we treated ourselves to some roadside Kulfi, before heading back to the hotel for the night.
We spent another two days in Amritsar, but it was too hot to do anything. So we spent most of the time indoors and in malls. We took a flight back from Amritsar to Chennai, ending our vacation to North India!
