The thread that ties Jaipur to the Ganga
A Rajput palace on the river: Raja Man Singh of Amber, Akbar's great general, built Man Mandir on the ghats around 1600. Our Kachwaha kings ruled from Amber Fort then.
A Jaipur astronomer on the roof: more than a century later, Sawai Jai Singh II, who founded Jaipur in 1727, added an observatory to the palace roof, a smaller sister of our Jantar Mantar.
- Man Mandir
- Built by Raja Man Singh of Amber, around 1600
- The observatory
- Added by Sawai Jai Singh II
- His five observatories
- Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Varanasi, Mathura
- Kashi Vishwanath
- Rebuilt 1780 by Ahilyabai Holkar
- Kings competing to give: in the eighteenth century Rajput, Maratha and other royal houses rebuilt most of the ghats as acts of devotion. Each palace on the river is a royal family's gift.
- Queens who built: the Maratha queen Ahilyabai Holkar rebuilt the Kashi Vishwanath temple in 1780, and a queen of the Gwalior house built Scindia Ghat, whose temple now leans into the river.
- Pilgrims from our villages: Rajasthani families have brought ashes to the Ganga for generations. Many of our older relatives made the journey once in their lives.
- Two ways of being holy: Rajasthan's faith lives in fort temples, family goddesses and desert shrines. Varanasi's lives on the water. Seeing both shows you how wide Hinduism is.
West to east, and why we finish on the river
Rajasthan first: palaces, forts and bazaars are the confident, colourful start. You learn India's rhythms there, with long drives on good roads and palace nights.
Agra in the middle: the Taj Mahal sits naturally between the Rajput west and the Gangetic east. It is closed on Fridays, so we plan around that day first.
- Varanasi last: after two weeks in India, you are ready for its intensity. Arriving on day one straight off a long-haul flight is too much for most people.
- The emotional shape: our guests say the last dawn on the Ganga is when the whole journey makes sense. We have stopped arguing with them.
- When to reverse it: if you are flying on to Nepal or South-East Asia, ending in Rajasthan can mean an easier international connection from Delhi. We plan around your onward ticket.
Three ways to get from Rajasthan to the Ganga
- Delhi to Varanasi by air
- About an hour and a half
- Agra to Delhi Airport
- About three and a half to four hours by road
- Delhi to Varanasi by train
- About eight hours, Vande Bharat
- Varanasi airport
- Lal Bahadur Shastri (VNS), about an hour from the ghats
By air through Delhi, the usual way
How it works: after a sunrise at the Taj, drive the expressway back to Delhi Airport and take the afternoon flight east.
- Why we like it: you are on the river for a late dinner, and nobody spends two days on the road.
- What to know: direct flights from Rajasthan's airports to Varanasi are rare, so Delhi is nearly always the link.
By the fast train, for those who love rail
How it works: the Vande Bharat Express links Delhi and Varanasi in about eight hours.
- Why choose it: a calm day watching the plains of Uttar Pradesh go by, with meals served at your seat.
- What to know: it costs you most of a day. Our guide to trains in Rajasthan explains how we book the good classes.
Through Orchha and Khajuraho, the slow road
How it works: take the Gatimaan Express from Agra to Jhansi, spend two nights in Orchha, drive four to five hours to Khajuraho, then fly to Varanasi when the seasonal flights run.
- Why choose it: painted Bundela palaces and the Chandela temples turn a transfer into a crossing of central India.
- What to know: add three or four nights. Read Orchha, the forgotten capital and our Khajuraho temples guide.
A twelve-night shape we use often
Night 1, Delhi
- Land and sleep: a quiet hotel, and if you arrive in daylight, an hour at Humayun's Tomb in the late light.
Nights 2 and 3, Udaipur
- Fly south-west: about an hour to Udaipur, then a boat on Lake Pichola at sunset.
- The next day: the City Palace in the morning, a slow afternoon by the water.
Nights 4 and 5, Jodhpur
- The drive: about five hours in all, by way of the marble Jain temple at Ranakpur.
- The fort: Mehrangarh at opening time, then the blue lanes of Brahmpuri.
Nights 6 to 8, Jaipur
- The drive: about five to six hours east to our home city.
- Three full days: Amber in the morning, the walled city at dusk, a block-printing village, a cooking lesson and time to rest.
Night 9, Agra
- On the way: the stepwell at Abhaneri and the deserted Mughal city of Fatehpur Sikri.
- At dawn: the Taj Mahal as the gates open, then the flight east from Delhi.
Nights 10 to 12, Varanasi
- On the river: dawn boats, two evening aartis, the lanes with a local guide and Sarnath for the Buddha's first sermon.
- The last morning: one more boat before the flight home through Delhi or Mumbai.
Festival timing, and one clash to know about
Diwali in Jaipur, then Dev Deepawali on the Ganga: spend Diwali in Jaipur, when the bazaars are lit, and reach Varanasi two weeks later for the night the ghats glow with lamps.
The clash: the Pushkar Camel Fair culminates on the same Kartik full moon as Dev Deepawali. You can see the fair's early days and then fly east, but not both full-moon nights.
- Diwali
- October or November, new moon of Kartik
- Dev Deepawali
- Kartik full moon, about two weeks after Diwali
- Pushkar Camel Fair
- Ends on the same Kartik full moon
- Holi
- February or March
- Mahashivratri
- February or March
- Book far ahead: Dev Deepawali is the most crowded night of Varanasi's year. We reserve boats and river rooms many months in advance.
- Holi in two styles: Rajasthan's Holi is colour in palace courtyards and village squares. Varanasi's is louder and wilder. Choose one, and plan the other half of the journey around it.
- Mahashivratri: Shiva's great night, in February or March, fills the Vishwanath temple with huge crowds. Wonderful to witness, hard for sightseeing.
- We confirm dates each year: lunar festivals move, so we fix your journey around them once the calendar is published.
Where to stay at each end
In Rajasthan, palace nights
Jaipur: Rambagh Palace, once the home of our maharajas, or The Oberoi Rajvilas in its gardens.
- Udaipur: on the water at Taj Lake Palace.
- Jodhpur: Umaid Bhawan Palace, where the royal family still lives in one wing.
In Varanasi, on the ghats
BrijRama Palace: an early nineteenth-century sandstone palace on Darbhanga Ghat, reached by boat or through the lanes.
- Why: waking to bells and the river, and stepping straight into a boat at dawn.
- Ask for: a river-facing room on an upper floor.
In Varanasi, in a garden
Taj Nadesar Palace: a small palace in quiet gardens, once a residence of the Maharajas of Banaras, with only a handful of suites.
- Why: calm and space after the crowds, at the cost of a drive to the ghats each morning.
- Or split it: a night on the river and two in the garden suits many older travellers.
Preparing for the change of mood
Death is in plain sight: cremations burn day and night at Manikarnika Ghat. Watch quietly, from a boat or an upper level with your guide.
Never photograph the cremations: not the fires, the bodies or the mourners. It is the one firm rule of the ghats.
- Ignore the wood-money trick: anyone asking for money for wood for the poor at the burning ghats is running a known scam.
- The lanes are a maze: Varanasi's galis defeat everyone in five minutes. Walk them only with a local guide.
- Temple security is strict: phones, bags and cameras usually stay outside Kashi Vishwanath. Your guide will hold them.
- The river is for blessing, not swimming: a sprinkle of Ganga water on the head is enough. Don't drink it or bathe in it.
- Dress as for our temples: shoulders and knees covered, shoes you can slip off. Our temple etiquette guide has the details.
Two kitchens, west and east
What you leave behind in Rajasthan
Dal baati churma: baked wheat balls with lentils and sweet crumbled bread, the dish of every Rajput feast.
- Laal maas: the fiery red mutton curry of the hunting kitchens.
- Pyaaz kachori: the onion-filled pastry of Jodhpur and Jaipur mornings. Our pyaaz kachori guide tells its story.
What waits on the Ganga
Kachori-sabzi and jalebi: the Banaras breakfast in the lanes, with a spiced potato curry.
- Malaiyo: saffron milk foam whipped in the cold night, sold only in winter mornings, from about November to February.
- Tamatar chaat: a spicy tomato dish made only in Banaras, for the evening.
- Banarasi paan: betel leaf folded around sweet fillings. Ask for one without tobacco.
What the two share
- Lassi in clay cups: thick and creamy in both places. We still think ours in Jaipur wins. Read lassi in Jaipur.
- A love of sweets: both cities measure a festival by the queues at the sweet shops.
Adding more to the eastern end
Sarnath: about ten kilometres from Varanasi, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Its museum holds Ashoka's lion capital, India's national emblem. A calm half day.
Bodh Gaya: about six hours by road, where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Buddhist travellers often continue there.
- Ramnagar Fort: across the river, the eighteenth-century fort of the Maharajas of Banaras, and the setting of a month-long Ramlila each autumn.
- Silk weaving: a morning with a family of weavers, watching Banarasi brocade grow thread by thread on a handloom.
- Orchha and Khajuraho: the slow road east, with painted palaces and the finest medieval temples in north India. Our Rajasthan, Orchha and Khajuraho journey shows that route.
What most visitors miss
The southern ghats at dawn: from Assi Ghat north to Kedar, wrestlers train in the soft earth of an old akhara at Tulsi Ghat while the river turns pink.
The northern end: beyond Manikarnika, the ghats grow quieter, with washermen, families and Scindia Ghat's half-sunk temple.
- Sunset from the water: the ghats are just as beautiful at dusk as at dawn. We usually plan two boats a day.
- The museum on the campus: Bharat Kala Bhavan at Banaras Hindu University holds fine miniature paintings, some from the Rajput courts you will have just visited.
- Music: Varanasi is the home of the Benares gharana of tabla and the shehnai of Bismillah Khan. A private recital in a courtyard is an evening to remember.
- Silence: an hour sitting on the steps with no plan at all. It is what pilgrims have done here for centuries.
Who will love this journey, and who should not
Curious first-timers: palaces, the Taj and the sacred river give the broadest first picture of north India.
Travellers interested in faith: the forts' temples, the Sufi shrine at Ajmer, the Jain marble of Ranakpur and then the Ganga make a remarkable sequence.
- Photographers: the light on Rajasthan's sandstone and on the ghats at dawn are two of the great sights of India, with the strict rule at the burning ghats in mind.
- Not for the squeamish: if crowds, poverty or open cremation will distress you, a single night and one boat is the gentle way in, or choose another ending.
- Not for a very short trip: with under nine nights, keep to Rajasthan and Agra. Our Golden Triangle and Udaipur journey suits that shape.
Before you go
Keep a light bag for the east: cars can't reach the ghats in Varanasi, so the last stretch to your hotel may be on foot or by boat. Porters carry the big cases.
Carry small notes: for boatmen's tips, temple shoe-keepers and flower lamps on the river.
- Taj Mahal
- Closed on Fridays
- Red Fort, Delhi
- Closed on Mondays
- Varanasi monsoon
- July to September, boats often stopped
- Fog season
- December and January mornings
- Dress
- Shoulders and knees covered at temples
- Bring a shawl in winter: dawn on the Ganga from December to February is cold and often misty.
- Save energy for the last days: don't fill your final Rajasthan day. The flight east follows a sunrise at the Taj.
- Check the river in the monsoon: from July to September the Ganga can rise over the lower ghats, and the aarti sometimes moves to higher ground.
- Read ahead: our Varanasi guide and best time to visit Varanasi pages go deeper.
How we look after you at both ends
One chauffeur in the west: the same car and driver from Udaipur to Agra, so your bags are never repacked between companies.
A new team in the east: a car meets you at Varanasi airport, and a guide whose family has lived by the ghats takes over on foot and by boat.
- The boats are booked: the dawn rowing boat and a place on the water for the aarti, held for you every evening.
- Temples handled: we hold phones and bags at Kashi Vishwanath and explain the queues before you join them.
- Your planner on WhatsApp: the same person throughout, rearranging the day if fog moves a flight. We quote after one conversation, never from a price list.