| Amritsar photo gallery and slide show: Although
not the capital of the Punjab, Amritsar is certainly it's main city,
a bustling market centre only 27 km from the Wagah border crossing
with Pakistan. The Punjab is famous throughout India for it's agriculture,
and Amritsar is a major wholesale market for the distribution of fruit,
vegetable, grains and other agricultural produce from the surrounding
Punjabi villages. The area around the Grand Trunk Road (GT Road) is
thick with the reek of rubbish and rotting agricultural debris (and
a variety of other inexplicable aromas), while the twisting lanes
of the Old City, close to the famous Sikh Golden Temple, are as clean
as they are narrow. Amritsar is a city with a strong sense of history
and the narrow alleys and streets of the Old City evoke the vivid
imagery of a past India, although the traditional buildings, with
their stylised arched entrances and ornate trellised wooden balconies,
are slowly being replaced with modern concrete structures. |
