If you are a tourist in North India, after travelling around for a while, you can be sure you'll somehow end up to a place that every single gora (Hindi for "foreigner") you meet says to be the best in India: McLeod Ganj. Or at least that is what happened to me. According to, well, everyone I met in my first month in the country, McLeod Ganj was supposed to be the best and most interesting of all Indian places. So, believing what made McLeod Ganj so special was being the home of the Tibetan government in exile, I booked my flight there (flight, yes, because bus rides did and do scare me, in India). 

Anyway, as soon as I arrived there, I realized that there was something weird about that town: it was full of hippies.

Which wouldn't be so bad - horrible clothes and Crocs aside (Crocs are just too much you guys) - if it weren't for the fact that this interesting "population" seems to have affected the quality of eateries and accommodations in town. Because the tourists here are too busy being happy and "loving it" to ever complain. So McLeod Ganj is one of those places in India where every two-by-two-meters place to eat specializes in - at least - Chinese, American, Italian, French, Israeli, Tibetan and Indian cuisine, and somehow can't prepare any of the dishes on the menu in a remotely decent way.

In McLeod Ganj, random conversations on the meaning of life with guys who have long-stopped to wash their hair are around every corner. But good food, or a tranquil place to stay and enjoy the mountain view, is quite difficult to find.

But you still have a few, really good options, proving that there is some sort of blessing over that place. One of them is Chonor House.

Chonor House, a branch of the Norbuligka institute of Tibetan Culture, is a small hotel with ten beautiful rooms, each with a different name and theme, furnished with traditional Tibetan handicrafts.

A restaurant in the garden serves freshly squeezed juices for you to enjoy while you take a morning view at the mountains. There is a small library, personnel are very attentive, and visitors walk around without wearing all the clothing items they possess one of top of the other (another main trend amongst the hippie community). You might even end up meeting interesting people there, people that don't pretend to be interesting.

Everyone in Chonor House - including the resident cats and the little puppy - puts all the possible care into making you feel comfortable, without all the formalities of big luxury hotels, nor the sloppiness or guesthouses.

Get your room there - Central Tibet was our favourite - or go there for dinner: their food is great, and their shallow fried eggplants with tomato and basil sauce are delicious.

Seen from Chonor House's perspective, McLeod Ganj becomes a fascinating, privileged place where you can learn a lot about Tibetan culture and, if lucky, get in contact with its highest representatives. More than once I thought about going back just to spend some quality time in Chonor House. And apparently that is where Richard Gere stays, whenever he is in town to meet His Holiness: wouldn't you want to risk sharing a dinner with him?