Travel in Varanasi

Varanasi appears twice in the programme, and never on its own. Golden Triangle & Spirituality runs eight days from EUR 1,175 and reaches the Ganges after Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. Royal Rajasthan & Varanasi runs fourteen days from EUR 1,520 and gets there after the Shekhawati havelis, Ranthambore and the Taj Mahal. Both are private and guided, with a German-speaking guide included. There are no scheduled group departures.

The city as the itineraries describe it: ancient, labyrinthine, busy. Hindus hold that dying in Varanasi releases a person from the cycle of life and death, which is why so much of it happens in the open on the riverbank. Pilgrims come from across India and beyond to wash in the river.

Both trips give the city two nights, and both run them the same way. You arrive, and the first thing on the itinerary is a rickshaw ride down to the water for the evening Aarti. Priests work through the ceremony with chanting and the flames of oil lamps, the light sits on dark water, and thousands of people follow it from the steps and from boats. Both itineraries call this a first glimpse rather than the whole thing.

The one full day starts at sunrise. A boat ride carries you along the ghats — roughly 90 of them, with temples and shrines between — while the morning rituals go on above, sitar music over the water. Both itineraries attach the same condition to that boat ride: depending on water levels. That is a real caveat, not filler; the river rises and falls through the year. Then Sarnath, on both trips, where the Buddha gave his first sermon after his enlightenment. It is the only excursion out of the city that either itinerary makes.

What differs is how you arrive and how you leave. On the eight-day trip Varanasi is the last stop: on the final day a domestic flight takes you to Delhi, where a room near the airport is held for about three hours and there is dinner before a late-evening or after-midnight international departure. On the fourteen-day trip you come in from Agra on the night train in 2AC sleeper class — one of the trip's overnight stays is on board rather than in a hotel — and fly back to Delhi afterwards for the Qutb Minar, then a full day in the capital before flying home. That Varanasi–Delhi flight sits inside both itineraries. International flights do not.

So: two nights, one evening ceremony, one sunrise on the river, one excursion to Sarnath. Enough for the shape of the place, not enough to know it. Both trips put you in the Madin Hotel in a Deluxe room for those two nights, and there is no five-star tier in the programme. Because every trip is private, the pace of the two days belongs to your own party.