The Latest Breaking News from Bir

Paragliding at Bir Billing: What a Tandem Flight Really Costs and How Long You Will Wait

The Queue Nobody PhotographsThe Billing launch site sits at roughly 2,400 metres above sea level, about 14 kilometres uphill from Bir town by road. On a clear morning during peak season, October and November, or March and April, there can be 80 to 120 tandem passengers queued ahead of you.…

Times Life · Sep 24

The Kangra Tea Belt in Himachal: The Forgotten Gardens That Once Competed With Darjeeling

The morning the London market chose somewhere elseIn 1905, a single earthquake did what decades of competition could not. The Kangra valley had been producing tea since the 1850s, its gardens running along the lower Dhauladhar slopes from Palampur westward, and by the 1880s its orthodox leaf was fetching prices…

Times Life · Sep 23

Himachal Homestay Tourism: What Mountain Families Gain and What Travellers Bring Back

The room is not the pointThe bed is narrow. The blanket smells of cedar and something older. Outside the window, a walnut tree drops its fruit onto a tin roof at 5 a.m., and that sound wakes you before the family does. You did not come here for the room.…

Times Life · Aug 18