River Ganges

We boarded three little rowing boats, and headed onto the River Ganges where we would spend the next two days. It was absolute bliss, after the hard travelling of the past few days. We didn’t do a whole lot – lay back in the boats and watched the Indian countryside float by. The photo above shows the next boat, and the one below is of Elke and I hard at work.


We saw a cremation on the banks of the river, and many fishermen on the shore, on the river, wading through the water. There were Ganges dolphins – but each time they surfaced I was sleeping, so I didn’t actually see any myself. Maybe next time.


We camped on a sand island in the middle of the river, in tiny 2-person tents. Our food was cooked for us by the crew and we ate sitting in a circle on an enormous rug. We then sat around the fire for hours, chatting, telling stories, laughing and generally behaving like teenagers at a school camp.


The next morning we were up at 6am, for a hot breakfast in the thick mist. A small crowd of local boys swam across to the island and just stood around watching the crazy tourists, living in tents on a sand island in the middle of the river.

We then continued on our way, with more chatting, gossiping, dreaming and sleeping. The photos don’t do justice to this part of the journey – it wasn’t so much what we saw as what we imagined.