The Grand Trunk Road

I spent a good part of the day today on the Grand Trunk Road, traveling between Chandigarh and Amritsar in the Indian state of Punjab. 

Map of the Grand Trunk Road (from Wikipedia)

The Grand Trunk Road is an ancient highway, stretching from Kabul, Afghanistan over the Khyber Pass into Pakistan and then down through North India and Bangladesh to the port city of Chittagong. Overall, the road stretches 2,500 kilometers or 1,600 miles. The route we took today is a particularly interesting piece of the "GT Road," connecting Ludhiana and Amritsar in the far northwest of India. This was once a part of the busy highway connecting Delhi and Lahore, the capital city of the Raj Province of Punjab before the Partitions of 1947. The border crossing at Wagah now divides what was once a united province. Northbound traffic leaving Amritsar appears to be quite light. Lahore is so very close, yet at the same time so very far away. 

The Lahori Gate, Amritsar

The GT Road ranges from modern four-lane freeway to two-lane highway. Buses, cars, trucks, tractors, bicycle carts, and every other imaginable form of transportation jockeys for position continuously. Our bus seemed to be honking its horn more than it wasn't. It's an elaborate dance whose steps I have most certainly not learned.

Sunset over a river along the way