Bir (Bir Billing)Travel Guide

The launch site at Billing sits roughly 2,400m up a ridge 14km above Bir, marketed as one of the world's highest paragliding take-off points. Tandem flights ride thermals for 15–30 minutes before landing at the Chowgan ground in Bir village — Himachal's single most popular adventure activity.

A Nyingma-tradition monastery in Bir known for its Tibetan architecture and a large gilded stupa, home to a community of monks who periodically hold ceremonies open to visitors. One of the most striking buildings in the Tibetan colony.

Settled in the early 1960s by Tibetan refugees, this colony holds monasteries from the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Sakya traditions alongside a handicraft centre, school, and clinic — a living community rather than a museum piece.

A centre for the study of classical Indian wisdom traditions, founded in 2006 on the site of a former Buddhist monastic campus set in pine forest. It runs short courses and retreats on Buddhist philosophy, yoga, and the arts, and welcomes day visitors to its peaceful grounds.

A long-running local tea cooperative that offers walk-through tours of the withering, rolling, and drying process behind Kangra tea — a quieter, low-key counterpart to Bir's adrenaline-sport reputation.

The monastic seat of the 12th Kenting Tai Situpa, one of the larger Tibetan Buddhist institutions in the region, set in forested foothills a short drive from Bir. Its shrine halls and debate courtyards are open to respectful visitors.

An ASI-protected 1204 CE stone temple dedicated to Shiva as Vaidyanath ("lord of physicians"), in the town of Baijnath in the Kangra Valley — one of the oldest continuously worshipped temples in Himachal, reachable as a half-day trip from Bir.