Haridwar & Rishikesh — Four Nights on the Ganga

North to the edge of the hills, where the Ganga comes out of its gorge and onto the plain — which is what Haridwar means, the gateway. The afternoon goes up to Mansa Devi by ropeway for the town laid out below, the river split into its channels and the Shri Yantra bridge across them. At sunset the ghats at Har Ki Pauri fill for the aarti: the lamps go out onto the water on leaf boats, the bells start on both banks, and for twenty minutes the whole town faces the river. Dinner is vegetarian, as everything in Haridwar is.

A morning at Chandi Devi on the other side of the river, then the short drive north to Rishikesh, twenty-five kilometres upstream, where the river is still a mountain river — green, cold and fast. The afternoon is the ashram bank at Swarg Ashram, the bookshops and the German Bakery lanes behind it, and the sand beach below. The footbridges have had a hard few years: Lakshman Jhula has been closed on safety grounds since 2019, and Ram Jhula — the 1986 bridge everyone used instead — closed on 25 July 2026 for a restoration expected to run to about December 2026, so at the time of writing the crossings are Janki Setu and the new Bajrang Setu, whose glass side-walkways charge a fee and close during the Kanwar Yatra. The evening aarti at Parmarth Niketan runs from about a quarter past five to a quarter to seven, sung rather than shouted, with the children of the ashram school leading it.

The morning session starts early, as the schools here do: an hour and a half of asana and pranayama at a riverside shala — registered under the state's 2025 yoga policy, which is the licence we check before we book anyone — with a teacher told in advance what your group can and cannot do. Breakfast afterwards, and then Chaurasi Kutia — the ashram the Beatles came to in February 1968, abandoned for decades and now open, its meditation pods and painted domes standing in the forest inside the Rajaji reserve boundary. The afternoon is an Ayurvedic treatment, an hour or ninety minutes at a licensed centre, and the evening is yours on the ghats.

In season the day starts upstream: the sixteen-kilometre run from Shivpuri is the standard one, with a stretch of graded rapids and a stop on a sandbank halfway, and the shorter nine-kilometre run from Brahmapuri suits anyone unsure about white water. Out of season the morning goes up the Neer Garh waterfall trail instead, a two-kilometre walk through the forest to a pool under the fall. The afternoon is a second yoga session, the Triveni Ghat aarti at sunset, and a last evening with the river going past.

A last walk on the bank before the drive out. Jolly Grant airport is an hour away and Haridwar railway station forty-five minutes, with the Shatabdi and the Jan Shatabdi both running to Delhi in the afternoon; by road Delhi is about six hours. On request the car can go on to Mussoorie or Nainital instead, which is how most people extend this trip into a longer one.