Amritsar or Jaisalmer?

Neither city has anywhere to swim. Amritsar sits on the inland plains of Punjab, and its only water is the Golden Temple's sacred pool, where pilgrims bathe as worship. In Jaisalmer, Gadisar Lake is for boating, not bathing. The real difference is the hotel pool: Jaisalmer's heritage hotels and resorts often have one, and in the hot months it earns its keep.

Amritsar is the city to travel to for food. Its own style of Punjabi cooking is famous: butter-laden kulcha with chole, batter-fried river fish, slow-cooked dal and lassi in steel tumblers, often from old dhabas near the temple that make one dish all morning. Eating dal and roti on the floor of the langar beside pilgrims is part of the visit.

Jaisalmer's desert cooking is worth trying, especially ker sangri and dal baati churma in a simple thali, or kachori from a morning stall. Many visitor restaurants, though, are rooftop places mixing a few local dishes with uneven pizza and pasta. Neither city does much fine dining.

These two are evenly matched, but the experience is very different. Amritsar is about devotion and modern history. The Golden Temple is a working shrine you return to at dawn and after dark, and close by are Jallianwala Bagh and the Partition Museum's personal accounts of 1947.

Jaisalmer is about architecture. Its twelfth-century fort is still lived in, with Jain temples carved in astonishing detail, and below it stand the lace-like façades of Patwon ki Haveli and its neighbours. Both sets of sights are small. In Amritsar you go back to one place again and again, while in Jaisalmer you wander a whole golden townscape.

Neither is a place for a night out. Amritsar's evenings are a long dinner and then a walk round the illuminated temple pool, with only a few hotel bars in the newer districts. Jaisalmer offers a rooftop meal facing the floodlit fort, perhaps a beer, or a campfire show at a dune camp that ends soon after dinner. In both, the lanes go quiet early.

Jaisalmer has the stronger draw outdoors, because the Thar Desert starts on its doorstep. An overnight camel trek through scrub and villages to sleep under the stars is the highlight, and the Desert National Park adds gazelles, raptors and the rare great Indian bustard. Still, there are no hills, rivers or forests.

Amritsar is surrounded by flat fields of wheat, rice and mustard, so walks happen in its city gardens. Its one real outing is the Harike wetland, about an hour and a half away, which is best in winter when the waterbirds arrive.

Amritsar gives you more to do in a day. The Wagah border ceremony, about 30km away, is a loud and unforgettable afternoon, and Sikh pilgrimage towns such as Tarn Taran Sahib lie within an hour. Kapurthala's French-style palace and Moorish mosque are further, but still manageable in a day.

Jaisalmer's outings are short and pair well with a dune trip: the Jain temples at Lodurva and the abandoned stone villages of Kuldhara and Khaba. Beyond them, Pokaran and Tanot each take around two hours by road for a modest reward.

Both suit a family with school-age children better than one with toddlers, and neither has anything built for children. Amritsar's draws are the excitement of the langar kitchens and the Wagah crowds. However, the old-city traffic, fierce summers and foggy winter mornings take some care.

Jaisalmer is more of an adventure. A fort that looks like a giant sandcastle, camel rides, jeep runs and a night in a tent camp tend to win children over. Getting there is a long journey, though, and it really only works in the cool months.

Both are easy at the centre and awkward beyond it. In Amritsar, the temple, Jallianwala Bagh and the Partition Museum are linked by a pedestrianised heritage street. Anywhere else means rickshaws or ride-hailing cars through heavy traffic.

Jaisalmer is a smaller town, where the fort, havelis and lake are all within walking distance. The lanes are narrow and uneven and shared with motorbikes and cattle. In both places you need a hired car or an organised trip to get further out, whether that is Wagah or the dunes.

Amritsar has the better bazaars. Hall Bazaar and Katra Jaimal Singh are dense with Punjabi suits, shawls, bright phulkari embroidery and stacks of juttis, and the food shops sell papad and warian to take home. The malls cover branded fashion.

Jaisalmer has plenty of crafts, such as mirror-work quilts, camel leather, silver and carved sandstone, sold in the fort lanes. However, much of the stock repeats from shop to shop and the sellers push hard. Expect to bargain in both cities.

Both are very cheap, and the differences lie in the details. In Amritsar the biggest sight and the langar meals are free, and pilgrim rest houses take visitors too. In Jaisalmer, simple guesthouses with fort views cost little and camel trips can be haggled down. However, foreigners pay more at monuments there, and the palace hotels and luxury camps charge international rates.

Music is what both cities offer, and neither has much else. Amritsar's music is devotional: gurbani kirtan sung to harmonium and tabla from before dawn until late, which anyone can hear sitting by the temple pool.

Jaisalmer's is folk music. Manganiyar and Langa singers with kamaicha and khartal play most evenings at camps and on rooftops, often alongside Kalbelia dancers, and the winter Desert Festival brings out more. The settings feel staged at times, but the musicians are the real thing.

Neither is a place for spas, which come down to a few hotel treatment rooms, and both towns are noisy in the lanes. The calm comes from very different places. In Amritsar, it is the cool marble round the temple pool at dawn or late at night, with hymns in the air. In Jaisalmer, it is a quiet haveli courtyard in the afternoon or a remote dune camp after dark.