Grand Trunk Road

The Grand Trunk Road passes directly through Kamra, and for a certain kind of traveller, that is enough. This is one of the great historic routes of the world — connecting the Ganges plain to the northwest passes for over 2,000 years, carrying armies, merchants, pilgrims, and administrators through the subcontinent. The modern highway has buried much of the old road's character, but the underlying geography is unchanged.

Driving or riding the GT Road between Islamabad and Peshawar still gives you a sense of the route's importance. The landscape changes from the flat Punjab agricultural belt to the rocky Attock gorge to the more open terrain of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The roadside dhabas serve the same function the old caravanserai did — a place to stop, eat, and rest before continuing west.

things to do sight historic
A story
Kipling called it "a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world." The Grand Trunk Road — or GT Road, as everyone calls it — is one of the oldest and longest roads in Asia, stretching from Chittagong in Bangladesh to Kabul in Afghanistan. At Kamra, you are on the same route that Sher Shah Suri formalised in the 16th century by planting shade trees, building wells, and establishing caravanserais every few kilometres. Most of the trees are gone now, but the road remains.