Visiting India for the first time can feel frenetic, which is why a river cruise is the best way to find respite amidst the madness, writes Stephanie Holmes
Being driven through the streets of Kolkata while jetlagged is akin to watching a particularly frenetic movie on double speed with the volume turned up loud. Take every mental image you have of a big Indian city, then exaggerate it, multiply it and amplify it – it’s all here.
Incessant honking of horns from all sides – motorbikes, cars, buses, trucks, tuktuks, even your own driver. Buses painted in shades of bright blue, red and yellow with stencil lettering on their rear: “respect the traffic rules”, “blow horn”, “safe drive, save life”. Weaving in and out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic are tricycles with flatbed trailers, bicycles, pedestrians and packs of skinny, scruffy street dogs. On the pavements, men getting haircuts, bundles of clothes for sale, baskets of oversized limes, locals crowded around chai stands, drinking from shot-glass-sized paper cups.
An hour of driving across the city from the relative calm of my overnight hotel, The Oberoi Grand, feels like a fever dream and, while exciting at first, the noise and chaos start to get too much – I want to mute the volume, avert my eyes, retreat. The dream-like feeling is amplified by the hazy air – a combination of pollution, fog and rainclouds sitting low in the sky. It feels like those days before smoking was banned in bars, where you would peer across the smoke-filled room but not quite be able to make out the other side.
So to arrive at a jetty on the banks of the Ganges river is a welcome respite. A group of men in crisp, clean tailored shirts and pants are waiting by the side of the road, discreet Uniworld name badges pinned to their chests. They take my bags and we board a wooden tender for a short trip across the river – wide and fast-moving, water the colour of crocodile skin.
I’m greeted by what seems to be the ship’s entire crew. Drums play while someone places a bright orange marigold garland around my neck and smudges a dab of ochre paste to the space between my eyebrows. This is the extravagant welcome to the Ganges Voyager II, a 56m, three-deck river cruise ship, which will be my home for the next seven nights.
The Ganges – or Ganga in Hindi – is the most sacred river for Hindus in India, who believe in its healing properties and its ability to cleanse the soul. More than 400 million people live along the 2525km river’s floodplains and it’s an essential part of every day life – bathing, washing clothes, irrigation, transport; a vital artery that can never be severed.
And yet, it’s one of the most polluted rivers in the world, sullied by human excrement, ash from the bodies cremated on its banks, or human remains when a family can’t afford a cremation.
Just like India itself, the river and its tributaries are a contrast of extremes, but a luxury river cruise offers an exceptional way to take it all in. Travelling on the Ganges Voyager II, on the Hooghly River – the Western tributary of the Ganges – gives a literal sanitised version of India. You can step off the ship each day and become immersed in rural Indian life, but when you get back on board, a crew member will whisk away your shoes to be cleansed until they’re as good as new.
Walking through temple complexes and labyrinthine markets holds no alarm when you have a guide up front and a crew member at the rear, keeping an eye on your group, making sure no one gets lost, or harassed.
In most places the ship visits there is no harassment anyway. These are towns not often visited by tourists, not easily accessible other than by river, so we are still a novelty, not the norm.
Many of the group of close to 50 passengers on board this sailing have been to India many times before – but none have previously visited the places on our itinerary. Towns like Kalna, where we visit the Naba Kailash Mandir, a complex of 108 temples arranged in concentric circles, dedicated to Shiva; and Matiari, a working crafts village, where brass objects are still made by hand and you can buy direct from the artisans themselves.
Time on board, sailing gently up river, is a tranquil, calming experience as the vessel cuts a smooth path through the millpond-still water. Watching rural India pass by the huge windows of my French balcony doors is mesmerising – colour, sound, life all sliding past my field of vision like an endless parade.
If you’re lucky, you might spot a Ganges river dolphin – a rare mammal, with only 5000 left in the world. One day I’m sure I see one dive under the water but it’s gone before I can verify its existence. I spend the rest of our sailing days, eyes peeled, hoping to see another.
Our presence is as much of a novelty to the locals we pass by as they are to us – villagers on the riverbanks get their phones out to film the boat passing by, while we lean from our balconies or the sun deck, filming them right back. Everything is so effortlessly colourful – mustard crops with yellow flowers; banana palms; out of nowhere, a pink temple, a bright blue house, washing lines strung with linens of red, yellow and orange. Children run to the river banks to wave as we go by; men momentarily pause from their sacred bathing rituals at the bottom of ghats – steps leading down to the water’s edge.
The Ganges sustains so much life, and it’s all right here for us, overwhelming our senses – the smoke-filled air that stings your eyes, the mournful lament of a call to prayer, the splash of water poured over a bather’s head, the squeals of children as they run to the river to elicit a wave from the passengers on deck. But the joy of the cruise: when it all becomes too much, close your balcony door and your curtains and retreat from the world.
If you can tear yourself away from the view, there are daily lectures where you can learn about everything from spices to Indian weddings to yoga. We can practice the latter every day at sunrise and sunset on the ship’s open-air sundeck. Yoga teacher, Romanian expat Anca, leads us, with a more active class in the morning, followed by chair yoga at 5pm, making the practice inclusive to all passengers, no matter their age or ability.
In this sailing at least, it certainly is an older crowd – mostly retirees, all adventurous travellers who have seen much of the world but still see no end to their bucket lists. There are Brits, Americans, Malaysians, Canadians, Taiwanese and a handful of Australians; I’m the only Kiwi.
The crew are a warm, hospitable bunch of dapper Indian men – all there to cater to our every need. Our comfortable suites are immaculately cleaned and tidied every day, the bar is always open, and food is readily available.
Executive chef Mainak plays well to his audience – there are local dishes available at every meal, but also a wide range of Western and European favourites for those with a more delicate palate.
Mainak wants to please and says he will make anything we want, off menu. On our third day, I ask him if he can make me something spicier than the mild curries that have been on offer so far. He delivers a prawn masala that satisfies all my cravings.
A few special treats are thrown in to surprise and delight – a local dance troupe comes on board one evening for an exclusive show of impressive traditional Indian dances from different regions of the country. One afternoon visit to a small rural village ends with a game of cricket between guests and crew. Some of the crew display impressive fast bowling skills and the passengers do their best to keep up.
Back on the ship, we toast our efforts with celebratory beers as we sail away into the hazy sunset, cosseted in the luxury and impeccable service we’ve quickly become used to.
But there are limits to the sanitised version of India that Uniworld provides. There’s no getting away from the more confronting sides of this country. Rubbish is everywhere, in great hulking piles – in the streets, outside homes, spilling like lava flow down to the water. Animal lovers will feel their hearts breaking for the stray dogs roaming the streets in varying states of health. And in Kolkata, the levels of poverty can make you feel sick to your stomach.
A visit to Calcutta Rescue feels more positive. This not-for-profit organisation gives education, healthcare and support to children from Kolkata’s slums, changing lives for the better. A small group of us from the ship visit one of their schools and the children greet us with bright smiles and emphatic “good mornings”. With the charity’s help, they will complete full educations and hopefully find employment.
The fever dream feeling returns as we drive back to the ship, weaving through Kolkata’s traffic and watching all human life pass us by. Variously I see: a man flying a purple kite from a fifth-storey window; a van packed with people – children three deep on an adults’ lap; a rickshaw pulled by hand by a barefoot wallah, man in business suit sitting on the back; a parade of women in brightly coloured saris crossing the road single-file; a man dodging between cars selling freshly cut coconut splayed on a silver platter; dogs scavenging through piles of trash by the road.
A trip to India certainly isn’t for everyone. And I don’t know that you can ever truly prepare yourself for your first visit, or how you’ll feel after it. But to make the cultural immersion and shock to the system a little easier, I can think of no better way to experience it than on a cruise where you can retreat into peace at the end of each day.
As we stop in traffic, a man walks by with a jumper emblazoned with the motto “Whatever happens, life has to go on”. It feels like the perfect epithet for India itself.
GETTING THERE
Air New Zealand flies from Auckland to Singapore, with connecting flights to Kolkata with Star Alliance partner Singapore Airlines. airnz.co.nz
DETAILS
This cruise is part of Uniworld’s 13-day Golden Triangle and Sacred Ganges itinerary – with a 6-day land component that visits classic highlights of India, like the Taj Mahal, Rajasthan, Agra and New Delhi, with the option to extend the trip with a post-cruise visit to the holy city of Varanasi. For the full itinerary, departure dates and prices, see uniworldcruises.com
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