Travel to Amritsar

overshadowed by the infamous massacre in 1919

Amritsar is located in the Punjab province of northeast India, roughly 400 km (250 miles) northwest of Delhi and just 25 km west of Lahore, across the border in Pakistan.

The city was established around 1575 by Sikh guru Ram Das and was fortified by the addition of a massive defensive wall in 1822. The modern city now extends well beyond this threshold and is home to just over a million people.

The city is unfortunately best known for the terrible massacre of hundreds of civilians by the British troops in 1919. The army was under the command of a rogue officer, Reginald Dyer, who inexplicably ordered his men to open fire on an otherwise peaceful political demonstration. Known as the Jallianwala Bagh (or Amritsar) Massacre, this famous event brought great shame on the British administration in India and contributed significant momentum to the independence movement.

Amritsar is home to the magnificent Golden Temple, which surely rivals the Taj Mahal as the most spectacular historic site in the country. This wonderful building, which seems to float in the water of a man-made lake, is the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion and attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. Everyone is welcome to visit the inner shrine, where the devout chant and walk in a clockwise direction around the gilded statue of guru Granth Sahib.

Close to the temple there is a huge kitchen, which is run by volunteers and aims to offer lunch to anyone and everyone, sitting together in an open dining hall. Visitors are welcome to help out with the cooking, serving or washing up.

The city also contains an impressive and colourful bazaar, which is well worth exploring.

Another renowned attraction is the ceremonial rising and lowering of the flags that takes place at the small town of Wagah, on the border with Pakistan, a rare and important show of cooperation along this often contested barrier. To learn more about the painful separation of these two countries in 1947, you can visit the Partition Museum back in Amritsar.

Due to its slightly out-of-the-way location up here in the northwest corner of the country, Amritsar tends to feature relatively rarely in trips, although more experienced India travellers may choose to combine it with Shimla and other locations in the foothills of the Himalayas.

rarely included in trips