Amritsar

The Golden Temple

Guru Amar Das, a founding Sikh leader, chose the small village of Amritsar as the location of a holy shrine in the late 16th century. Since then, it has bloomed into one of the Punjab’s largest cities. Set between the summer capital of the British Raj, Shimla, and the Pakistani city of Lahore, Amritsar has stood fast through colonial occupation, religious dissent and the partition of India and Pakistan.

Away from the temple

A short walk from the temple is Amritsar’s old city, a red-walled labyrinth of Hindu temples and carved wooden doors that lead to courtyards strung with washing. The bazaar sells rows of red bangles, reams of bright sari fabric and shiny rows of metal cookware. You can also walk around Jallianwala Bagh, a public garden with a memorial to more than 1,000 Punjabis who were killed in 1919 when a troop of British soldiers opened fire on them as they held a nationalist gathering.

After the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, Amritsar sat just 28 km (17 miles) from the border. The town of Wagah became a border post, and over the following years the daily closure of the border has turned into an elaborate ceremony. Tiered seating on each side gives you a vantage from where you can cheer on the guards of both nationalities as they perform a series of maneuvers that look more like dance performances than army drills.

Once the parading is over, both countries’ flags are painstakingly lowered in tandem, there’s a brief handshake between soldiers, and the iron gates are locked. If you’d like to learn more about the separation of India and Pakistan, the Partition Museum opened in Amritsar in 2016 with a collection of photographs and interviews from those who were affected.