In his book Slowly Down the Ganges, Eric Newby reveals that the sacred river is known as “the pure, the eternal, the creator of happiness”. And never more so than when it flows past Varanasi, I thought, as our river ship, Rajmahal slipped under the vast ironwork bridge, the Malviya, which spans the Ganges at the self-proclaimed oldest living city in the world.
Twenty years ago I had rumbled over the bridge on a second-class sleeper train hauled by two hulking diesel engines. This time I was arriving in finer style and in time to see the setting sun turn the Ganges into a sheen of burnished copper.
On the bathing ghats that rise in steep steps from the river’s edge, dewy-eyed gap-year travellers mingled with naked sadhus, their bodies caked in grey ash, and hordes of Hindu faithful as all waited for darkness to fall and the nightly Ganga Aarti ceremony to begin.
Before boarding Rajmahal at Patna for its inaugural sailing, I had spent three exhilarating days in the pressure cooker that is modern-day Kolkata. So, in a sense, my journey took me from the heart of the Raj to the very soul of India. In Kolkata, Basu, my guide, led me on a walking tour of Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the governor of West Bengal and the former seat of British imperial power.
Built in the early 19th century under Marquess Wellesley, the impressive, white, multi-winged building sprawls across 27 acres. It was designed along the lines of Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, the ancestral house of Lord Curzon, who later lived here as the viceroy and governor-general.
At the Writers’ Building nearby, which originally served as the office for writers of the British East India Company, an army of British bureaucrats ruled large areas of India with strokes of their pens. The city’s Victoria Memorial was built by Lord Curzon to rival the Taj Mahal and to show the world that anything the Mughals could do the Raj could do better. That aim failed, of course, but it’s impressive none the less and houses a museum that tells the city’s fascinating story from before the days of Major-General Robert Clive (also of the East India Company).
At the Mallick Ghat Flower Market we meandered through alleyways crammed with hundreds of flower sellers, the air thick with the sweet, cloying fragrance of blooms. And in the back streets of the Kumartuli district we saw artisans fashioning idols out of straw plastered with mud scraped from the banks of the Hooghly river. Once dry, the idols represented towering standing figures of the goddess Durga, the elephant-headed Ganesh and a pantheon of other Hindu gods, which loomed over us.
Life on board Rajmahal and the mighty Ganges could not have offered more of a contrast. For many, “cruising” conjures up the image of ticking off a number of Mediterranean ports or Caribbean islands from a floating hotel. Rest assured, the colonial-style Rajmahal, with its 22 air-conditioned cabins, small spa, saloon, elegant dining room and spacious sun deck, could not be further from that. Anglo-Indian operator Assam Bengal Navigation is run by two families whose personal touches are ubiquitous. The owners prefer to recruit and train all their staff locally, which meant we were looked after by people who took an obvious sense of pride in making sure that we wanted for nothing.
Life on board settled into an easy ebb and flow of lazy days on the sun deck watching river life float by, sipping cooling drinks and swapping stories of India with fellow passengers, who included a BBC documentary maker and many who had travelled the country’s rivers before with the Assam Bengal Navigation company.
We ate well. Freshly prepared Indian specialities were the order of the day, and a buffet at both lunch and dinner always provided a choice of dishes accompanied by some surprisingly drinkable Indian wines.
Each day there was a morning or afternoon excursion. This entailed disembarking on to a small boat that ferried us to landing stages or natural harbours scoured out of the bank by the mighty river, where two air-conditioned minibuses were always waiting to whisk us away into the interior.
At Sasaram we visited the imposing fortress-like tomb of the Pathan emperor Sher Shah Suri, who defeated the Mughals in the 1540s. At Buxar, our guide gave us a blow-by-blow account of the battle that laid the foundations of British rule in India, while at Chunar the inscriptions we read on the gravestones at the British cemetery told a less glorious story of the troops’ fate. Many died when they were terribly young, taken by disease.
We visited vast Mughal mausoleums, Raj memorials, palaces and mosques ­– Chunar Fort, Lord Cornwallis’s tomb at Ghazipur, Jaunpur Fort and Atala Mosque among them.
More remarkable than the sites themselves was the privacy we were afforded. At each one we found we were the only foreign visitors. Occasionally we shared the sites with parties of local schoolchildren, but otherwise we had them to ourselves. How often can you say that about India?
Twice we visited local villages where farmers stopped tilling their fields to invite us into their homes, and at a fishing village we watched the fishermen land and sort that day’s catch. We also peeked in at the local school, much to the delight and surprise of the children. We joined worshippers on the bank at dusk to offer puja, prayers symbolised by fluttering flames from lamps that we floated on the surface of the river.
We clambered aboard cycle rickshaws and were soon part of the flotsam of Indian street life as our rickshaw wallahs played chicken with the waves of oncoming lorries, cars, taxis and bullock carts. We toured a pottery factory and witnessed how traditional craft skills still held sway over mechanisation in parts of India. And everywhere we went, warmth and greetings were extended to us, but never hands.
These excursions still left plenty of time to recharge aboard Rajmahal and soak up life on the river as we steadily made our way towards Varanasi. In its lower reaches the Ganges is vast, stretching from horizon to horizon, an ocean of muddy, swirling water the colour of a cup of chai in need of an extra splash of milk. The steady throb of Rajmahal’s engines was often all that could be heard amid the watery stillness, punctuated by the occasional plop as a Gangetic dolphin broke the surface.
At Varanasi we anchored across from the imposing Ramnagar Fort. That night our cruise manager had organised grandstand seats for us at the Ganga Aarti ceremony, which takes place every evening at the Dashashwamedh ghat. In front of a vast crowd, bearded pandits, dressed in saffron robes and looking more like Bollywood heart-throbs than Sanskrit scholars, twirled lanterns of fire choreographed to the chanting of hymns and the clashing of cymbals, the air thick with incense and the smell of burning sandalwood.
At dawn next day we were gently rowed along the ghats. Worshippers lowered themselves into the sacred waters of the Ganges as the sun rose and temple bells rang out, echoing across the river to where Rajmahal lay at anchor, bathed in the early morning light.
Most river cruises are subject to the whims of tide –­ Rajmahal is no exception. The boat can sail to Varanasi only at certain times of the year, making the journey even more of a rare experience.
While he and his cameraman beetled off in search of another sound bite, I reflected that, should I make a return trip to Varanasi, one thing is for certain: I won’t be taking the train again.
Western & Oriental (020 7666 1234; westernoriental.com) offers a 12-day cruise and stay holiday to India, including a week’s cruise on the ABN Rajmahal from Patna to Varanasi from £2,499 per person, including all meals on board, three nights’ b&b at the Lalit Great Eastern hotel in Kolkata ahead of the cruise and one night at the Crowne Plaza in Gurgaon. Includes return flight and private transfers.
What to pack: mosquito repellent, a sun hat and light and loose cotton clothing. Smart casual for dinner.
Best time to go: sailings to Varanasi from Patna are weather-dependent. July, August and September are the best months to travel, when India is at its lushest. This is the monsoon season, so expect the occasional rainy day.
Visa: entry visa required – apply early (indianvisaonline.gov.in).
What to read: Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby, £4.79 (Kindle edition).
What to watch: Channel 4’s new drama Indian Summers starts on Sunday.