Quick Trips to Bundi & Amritsar

With so many places in India to see and a very strict itinerary to follow, due entirely to having to book trains 3 months in advance, I only had one day to visit Bundi and one day to visit Amritsar.

A captivating town with narrow lanes of Brahmin-blue houses, lakes, hills, bazaars and a temple at every turn, Bundi is dominated by a fantastical palace of faded parchment cupolas and loggias rising from the hillside above the town. Sadly the palace is now extremely run down and many parts are closed, however the 17th century Badal Mahal with its painted domed ceiling and the 18th century Chitrasala with its beautiful turquoise paintings are definitely worth a visit and I spent quite a few hours in both of these rooms capturing as many images of the paintings as I could.

With my flying visit of Bundi over, it was time to visit Amritsar. Founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Ram Das, Amritsar is home to Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the spectacular Golden Temple. The gold-plated gurdwara glitters in the middle of its sacred pool of placid water and draws millions of pilgrims from all over the world. A welcome escape from the frenetic bazaars, this gilded temple is rated by many tourists as a glowing highlight of their visit to India. However in a very unusual turn of events it actually rained all day in Amritsar and so I was unable to get any daytime shots of the spectacular Golden Temple, the rain did hold off long enough in the evening though which gave me the chance to get some sunset and blue hour shots.