Punjab (India)

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Pilgrims lining walkway across from Golden Temple.

Matt Munro

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Overview

A particularly tourist-friendly region, thanks to its strong expatriate connections with the UK and Canada, Punjab, the homeland of India’s Sikh population, provides a wonderful opportunity to go traipsing into the backyards of North India. The Golden Temple in Amritsar is an undoubted highlight, but Punjab hides other small treasures among its agricultural expanses. Rarely visited towns like Patiala, Bathinda and Faridkot contain seemingly lost-in-time marketplaces and crumbling forts that hint at faded grandeur, while welcoming gurdwaras (Sikh temples) are to be found across the state.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Golden Temple

Amritsar

The legendary Golden Temple is actually just a small part of this huge gurdwara complex, known to Sikhs as Harmandir Sahib. Spiritually, the focus of…

Govindgarh

Punjab (India)

Of all the ruined forts in Punjab, Bathinda’s Govindgarh is the mightiest and most impressive. It’s also the oldest, dating way back to the 7th century,…

Guru-Ka-Langar

Amritsar

At the southeast end of the Golden Temple Complex is the Guru-Ka-Langar, an enormous dining room where an estimated 100,000 pilgrims come to eat every day…

Qila Mubarak

Punjab (India)

The ancestral home of the maharajas of Patiala, this richly ornamented 18th-century fort is an Arabian Nights fantasy of soaring buttresses and latticed…

Golden Temple Interpretation Centre

Amritsar

Hidden beneath the marble square outside the clock-tower entrance to the Golden Temple, this fascinating multimedia museum tells the story of Sikhism and…

Partition Museum

Amritsar

Housed in the beautifully restored 19th-century Town Hall, this unique museum (the only one in the world dedicated to Partition) offers a poignant and…

Border-Closing Ceremony

Punjab (India)

Every afternoon Indian and Pakistani border guards meet at the border post between Attari and Wagah to engage in a 30-minute display of military…

Sheesh Mahal

Punjab (India)

Graced by two wedding-cake towers and an ornamental suspension bridge, Sheesh Mahal is one of Punjab's more striking buildings. Inside the lavishly…

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