Jammu

Most people meet Jammu as a railway platform on the way to Vaishno Devi, and the city has learned not to take it personally. Its old town sits on a bluff above the Tawi river where the plains of Punjab stop and the first ridges of the Shivaliks begin. Bahu Fort, on the opposite bank, is held by local tradition to be the city's oldest site, though the walls you see are Dogra work.

Those Dogras made the modern city. Gulab Singh, a Jammu noble who served Ranjit Singh's Sikh court, became Maharaja of the whole of Jammu and Kashmir in 1846, and his dynasty ruled from here until 1947. They left Mubarak Mandi, a sprawling, half-restored palace complex in a mix of Rajasthani, Mughal and European styles, and the Raghunath temple, begun by Gulab Singh in 1835 and finished by his son Ranbir Singh around 1860.

Jammu's nickname is earned: shikharas rise above the bazaars in every direction, and the Raghunath complex alone holds shrines with thousands of saligram stones. The Bawe Wali Mata temple inside Bahu Fort is the city's own goddess, crowded on Tuesdays and Sundays and full to bursting for the Navratri melas. Amar Mahal, a nineteenth-century palace built like a small French château above the river, is now a museum with Pahari miniatures and a golden throne.

Dogri food deserves more fame than it has. Kalari — kaladi in some spellings — is a local cheese fried in its own fat until crisp outside and molten inside, eaten in a kulcha at breakfast stalls. Rajma from Bhaderwah is the best in the north, ambal is a sweet-sour pumpkin dish with tamarind, khatta meat is mutton soured with pomegranate seed, and Dogra dham, the wedding feast, is cooked by hereditary cooks called siyans.

Security is part of daily life here: temples have bag and phone rules, and the Raghunath complex keeps them strictly, so leave as much as you can at the hotel. Go to Bahu Fort on a weekday morning, and stay for Bagh-e-Bahu's terraced gardens below it. Mansar lake, about 60 km east, is a quiet sacred lake ringed by forest and makes the best half-day out. And ask your Saint to take you to a kalari stall before nine, while it is still being fried to order.

Jammu is a devout city that hosts millions of pilgrims a year; dress modestly in the old town and remove shoes where asked. Do not photograph security installations or personnel. Buy from the bazaar rather than the airport — dry fruit, Basohli-style paintings and local spice blends support the city's own traders.

The reason most travellers are here at all lies an hour north. Katra, at the foot of the Trikuta hills, is the base for the twelve-kilometre walk to the Vaishno Devi shrine — one of the busiest pilgrimages in India, and well organised for it.