Golden Triangle with Amritsar Golden Temple – 8 Days

When you come out of customs at Indira Gandhi International Airport, a driver from Payless Tours India will be waiting with a board showing your name. You are driven to your hotel in a private air-conditioned car, a ride of around forty-five minutes to an hour, and the rest of the morning is free to recover from the flight. After lunch your Delhi guide meets you in the lobby. Since this tour ends among the Sikh shrines of Punjab, the first visit of the trip is Gurudwara Bangla Sahib near Connaught Place, the most visited Sikh place of worship in Delhi and a helpful preparation for what you will see later in Amritsar.

At the entrance you leave your shoes, cover your head with a scarf provided at the door and rinse your feet in a shallow channel of water before walking in. Inside, musicians sing hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, and worshippers sit quietly on the carpet. The gurudwara stands on the site of a bungalow where the eighth Sikh Guru, Har Krishan, stayed during a smallpox epidemic in 1664 and helped the sick. Its large pool is said to hold healing water. Your guide will explain the basics of Sikh belief, the role of the ten Gurus and the meaning of the langar, the community kitchen open to all.

Late in the afternoon you drive to Humayun's Tomb, built in 1570 for the second Mughal emperor by his widow, Haji Begum. Set in a square garden divided by water channels, it was the first garden tomb in India and set the pattern that the Taj Mahal later followed. The light at this hour softens the red sandstone and makes it a good time for photographs. On the way back to the hotel you pass India Gate and the long avenue of Kartavya Path, with the President's House at its far end. Dinner is at your own choice, and your guide can suggest restaurants near your hotel. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After breakfast you head into Old Delhi with your guide before leaving the city. The Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan between 1638 and 1648, is the place where the Prime Minister raises the national flag every Independence Day. You walk through the Lahori Gate and covered Chhatta Chowk bazaar to the Diwan-i-Am, the hall where the emperor sat on a marble throne to hear his subjects. The Red Fort is closed on Mondays, so on that day your guide will take you to Raj Ghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, instead. Nearby, the Jama Masjid can be seen from the road, with its three white domes and two tall minarets.

You then join the Yamuna Expressway for the drive to Agra, around three and a half to four hours on a fast toll road through the farmland of western Uttar Pradesh. A stop for lunch is made at a highway food court along the way. After checking in at your Agra hotel, your guide takes you to Agra Fort, the red sandstone citadel that served as the main Mughal residence before the court moved to Delhi. Inside the walls you see the Diwan-i-Khas, the white marble Khas Mahal and the octagonal Musamman Burj, where Shah Jahan was held under house arrest by his son Aurangzeb for the last eight years of his life.

As the sun drops, your driver crosses the river to Mehtab Bagh, a restored Mughal garden directly opposite the Taj Mahal. From here you see the back of the tomb across the water, without the crowds of the main complex, and the white dome turns orange and then grey as the light fades. Your guide will tell you the old story that Shah Jahan planned a second tomb in black marble on this very spot, and explain why most historians now doubt it. The Taj Mahal itself is closed on Fridays, and the order of the days is arranged around this. Return to the hotel for dinner and an early night. Overnight stay in Agra.

Your guide meets you before dawn and walks you to the Taj Mahal so you are among the first through security when the gates open. Entering the forecourt you see the tomb through the arched main gate, and then step out onto the long walkway beside the reflecting pool. At this hour the marble is grey and cool, and over the next half hour it brightens with the rising sun. Your guide will point out the four identical facades, the Persian and Arabic inscriptions, and the pietra dura flowers made from stones brought from across Asia. Inside the main chamber are the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, surrounded by an octagonal marble screen.

After breakfast and check-out you leave Agra for Jaipur, a drive of four and a half to five hours. Forty kilometres out of the city you stop at Fatehpur Sikri, the capital that Emperor Akbar built in the 1570s and left after about fourteen years, most likely because of water shortages. The palace courtyard is laid out like a giant board for pachisi, an old Indian board game, and the Panch Mahal rises in five open storeys of columns. Next door is the Jama Masjid with its 54-metre Buland Darwaza gate and the white marble tomb of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti, where visitors tie red threads to the screens while making a wish.

The road continues west into Rajasthan, and the scenery changes from the green plains of Uttar Pradesh to scrubland, rocky hills and villages where women carry water pots on their heads. Your driver can stop at a roadside dhaba for tea and a plate of fresh pakoras. By around five in the evening you pull into Jaipur and settle into your room. If you would like to go out in the evening, your guide can suggest a visit to Birla Mandir, a white marble temple dedicated to Lakshmi and Narayan that is lit after dark, or a quiet dinner at one of the heritage hotel restaurants in the city. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Following breakfast, your guide drives you out to Amber Fort, eleven kilometres north of Jaipur, rising above Maota Lake with its long defensive walls running along the ridges behind. You go up to the main gate on foot or by jeep and enter Jaleb Chowk, the first courtyard. Then comes the Diwan-i-Am, the Ganesh Pol gateway painted with frescoes, and the Sheesh Mahal, the mirror palace whose walls shine when light falls on them. Your guide will also take you into the Zenana, the women's quarters, where the rooms of twelve queens open onto a shared courtyard and a hidden corridor allowed the king to visit each one unseen.

On the way back you pause at the edge of Man Sagar Lake for a view of Jal Mahal, a summer palace whose lower floors lie under the water. Back in the city, you visit the City Palace complex, where the royal family of Jaipur still keeps the upper floors of the Chandra Mahal. The museum displays royal clothing, including the robes of Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh I, who was said to be over two metres tall and weighed around 250 kg. Next door, the Jantar Mantar holds the largest stone sundial in the world, with a shadow that moves about six centimetres every minute. Your guide will show you how each instrument works.

In the afternoon you walk with your guide through the old Pink City, starting opposite Hawa Mahal, the five-storey palace screen with 953 small windows built in 1799. From there you go on foot through Tripolia Bazaar, where brass and lac bangles are sold, and into the narrow lanes behind it where craftsmen work on marble statues, block-printed fabric and blue pottery. A cup of masala chai at a small roadside stall makes a good break before you head back to the hotel. The rest of the evening is free, or your guide can arrange a visit to Chokhi Dhani, a village-style restaurant with folk dancing and Rajasthani food. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Before leaving Jaipur you drive up the hill to Nahargarh Fort, built in 1734 on a ridge of the Aravalli hills overlooking the city. From its walls you have the widest view of Jaipur, with the grid of the old city below and the newer suburbs spreading out to the horizon. Inside is the Madhavendra Bhawan, a set of nine identical apartments built for the king's queens, linked by corridors so that he could visit any of them without the others knowing. A short stop on the way down at Royal Gaitor, the cremation ground of the Jaipur rulers, shows marble cenotaphs carved with the same delicate detail as a palace.

After an early lunch in Jaipur, you start the drive back to Delhi on National Highway 48, which takes five to six hours with breaks. The highway passes through the industrial town of Neemrana, where a fifteenth-century hilltop fort has been turned into a heritage hotel, and your driver can stop here for a short look or a cup of tea. Beyond Neemrana the road enters Haryana and the traffic gets heavier as you reach Gurugram, the business district at the southern edge of Delhi. Your driver will take you to your hotel, where you check in and take some time to rest after the drive.

In the evening you can walk to a nearby market for dinner, or your guide can recommend a restaurant serving Punjabi food as a taste of what is to come in Amritsar. Delhi has many good options, from butter chicken in Daryaganj, where many say the dish was first made, to vegetarian thalis in Connaught Place. Since the train to Amritsar leaves early the next morning, it is worth packing tonight and asking the hotel for an early breakfast box. Your guide will hand over your train tickets and explain where your driver will meet you at New Delhi railway station before departure. Overnight stay in Delhi.

Your driver collects you from the hotel early in the morning and takes you to New Delhi railway station for the Shatabdi Express to Amritsar, which normally leaves around 7:20 am. You travel in an air-conditioned chair car with reclining seats, and breakfast, tea and water are served at your seat by the railway staff. The train runs north through Panipat, Ambala, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, crossing the wheat and mustard fields of Haryana and Punjab, where tractors outnumber cars and farmhouses have water tanks shaped like footballs or aeroplanes on their roofs. If you prefer to fly, the train can be replaced by a morning flight of around one hour and ten minutes.

You arrive in Amritsar around 1:30 pm, where a private car and driver from Payless Tours India meet you on the platform. After check-in and a light lunch, you leave around 3 pm for the Attari border, about thirty kilometres west of the city, for the Beating Retreat ceremony. Timings change with the season, roughly 4:15 pm in winter and 5:15 pm in summer, so your guide will set the departure accordingly. Carry your passport, since there is a security check, and leave bags at the hotel because they are not allowed inside. Foreign visitors usually have a separate seating area close to the gate.

The ceremony is loud and theatrical. Before it starts, music plays and spectators dance and run with the Indian flag towards the border gate. Then the soldiers of India's Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers, in tall fan-shaped headgear, march towards each other, stamp their feet and kick their legs high in a show of mirrored rivalry. At sunset both flags are lowered at the same time, folded, and the gates are closed with a brief handshake. Your guide will explain the history of the border, which divided Punjab in 1947. You return to Amritsar in the evening for dinner. Overnight stay in Amritsar.

You start very early to see the Golden Temple at dawn, when the Guru Granth Sahib is carried in a palanquin from the Akal Takht back to the inner shrine with singing and drums. Covering your head and washing your feet at the entrance, you walk down the steps of the main gate and see Harmandir Sahib floating in the middle of the Amrit Sarovar, the pool of nectar that gives the city its name. Built in 1604 under the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev, the temple was covered in gold leaf by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early nineteenth century. Your guide walks you around the marble path that circles the pool and explains how Sikhs pray here.

After a rest and breakfast at the hotel, you return to the temple complex for the langar. You sit on long mats in the dining hall alongside pilgrims of every background and are served dal, chapati, a vegetable dish and kheer by volunteers. The kitchen feeds between fifty and a hundred thousand people each day. Afterwards your guide takes you into the kitchen, where huge iron pots of lentils simmer and machines and volunteers roll chapatis side by side, and you are welcome to help for a few minutes. Most of the work is done by people who come to volunteer for a day or a week as a form of service, called seva.

A short walk away is Jallianwala Bagh, where on 13 April 1919 British troops under General Dyer opened fire on a peaceful crowd, killing hundreds. The bullet holes in the walls and the Martyrs' Well, where many jumped to escape, are preserved. Then you visit the Partition Museum in the old Town Hall, which tells the story of the 1947 division of India through letters, photographs and recorded memories of families who crossed the border. Note that it is closed on Mondays. In the evening you return to the Golden Temple, lit in gold and white, to watch the Palki Sahib ceremony, when the holy book is taken back to the Akal Takht. Overnight stay in Amritsar.

After breakfast your driver drops you at Amritsar railway station for the Shatabdi Express to New Delhi, or at Amritsar airport if you have chosen a flight. On arrival in Delhi, a driver from Payless Tours India meets you and transfers you to Indira Gandhi International Airport or your hotel for your onward journey. Please share your international flight time in advance so the most suitable train or flight can be booked.