North Central India

Anchored by Agra, Khajuraho, and Varanasi, this section of the traveler's trail heads southeast of Delhi into the state of Uttar Pradesh, detouring into Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. This Hindi heartland has long held the balance of power in North India, from the ancient Gupta kingdoms through the Moghuls and the British Raj to the present day. Sometimes disparaged as the Cow Belt, North Central India has often been slow to advance economically, but it remains a vital part of India's heritage and contemporary culture.

Agra was a seat of Moghul power. Dominated by Muslim influences in culture, art, architecture and cuisine, the city is a testament to the beauty and grandeur of Moghul aesthetics, most notably in the form of the Taj Mahal, but also some exquisite smaller Muslim tombs and monuments.

Southeast of Agra, in the northern part of Madhya Pradesh, the sleepy village of Khajuraho predates the Moghuls. Khajuraho was founded at the end of the classical age of Hindu civilization—its stunning temples celebrate an eroticized Hinduism that flourished when Hindu kings adopted mystical beliefs. Excavations here have also uncovered a previously unknown complex of Buddhist temples.

In many ways, Varanasi, in southwestern Uttar Pradesh, is the antithesis of Khajuraho. The holiest city in Hinduism and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi teems with pilgrims, hospice patients, ascetics, priests, Hindu pundits, and international citizens of many religions. Unlike those of Khajuraho, Varanasi's temples are squeezed into the city itself, and the ghats (wide stone stairways leading down to the Ganges) are both key religious sites and secular promenades.

The popular Agra-Khajuraho-Varanasi route has plenty of worthwhile arteries. From Agra, it's an hour's drive southwest to Fatehpur Sikri and 30 minutes more to Keoladeo Ghana National Park—a bird sanctuary in Bharatpur, across the Rajasthan border. A separate day trip takes you from Agra to the Moghul-influenced Hindu provincial capital at Gwalior. The magical town of Orchha, a two-hour drive southeast of Gwalior toward Khajuraho, is riddled with 16th- and 17th-century ruins built by the Hindu Bundela rulers, including underground chambers and passageways. Buddha preached his first sermon in Sarnath, just outside Varanasi. Superb sculpture and the peaceful resonance of stupas and monastery ruins at Sanchi draw Buddhists from all over Asia, and the international Buddhist center of Bodhgaya is east of Varanasi in the state of Bihar. Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, was once the seat of an elegant Muslim province on a northern route between Varanasi and Delhi.

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