Haryana

Nobody plans a holiday in Haryana. You cross it — on the way to Amritsar, to Shimla, to Jaipur — and the state's real trick is being worth the stop. Murthal, an hour out of Delhi on the old Grand Trunk Road, is the reason. A row of dhabas serving parathas with a slab of white butter melting on top, open through the night, busiest around 2am with truck drivers and Gurugram twenty-somethings at the same tables. It is not refined and is not trying to be. For something older, go to Rakhigarhi in Hisar district — one of the largest Harappan settlements found anywhere, still mostly mounds and open trenches, with very little signage and almost no visitors. Kurukshetra is the opposite experience. The Mahabharata's battlefield and Jyotisar, where the Bhagavad Gita is said to have been spoken, are both heavily rebuilt in modern concrete. Go knowing that what will move you there is the belief of the people around you, not the stones. Pinjore, in the northeast where the land starts to rise, has a Mughal terraced garden that most people driving up to Shimla pass without noticing. It is the one place in Haryana worth an unhurried afternoon.