From Delhi: Varanasi Guided Tour – Ganga Aarti & Boat Ride

The two hours Varanasi is famous for

This is built around the evening: the Ganga Aarti at the ghats and a boat on the river. If you only ever get one evening in Varanasi, that is the one to have, and this packages it with the transfer from Delhi.

The boat

A rowed boat along the ghats. From the water the whole waterfront reads as one continuous stone facade, which is how it was built to be seen — the palaces above the steps were put up by maharajas from across India who wanted a house on this river.

At dusk the lamps go out onto the water in leaf boats, hundreds of them, and the ghats fill.

Manikarnika, the main cremation ground, is on this stretch. Its fires have burned without interruption for centuries, because Hindus hold that dying in Varanasi ends the cycle of rebirth and bodies arrive here from all over India.

Photography there is forbidden. That is absolute, your guide will tell you exactly where the line falls, and you should respect it without argument — these are funerals.

Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh

Performed every evening at the main ghat: seven priests on raised platforms, tiered brass lamps, conch shells, bells, incense and drums, moving in exact unison for around forty-five minutes.

Thousands watch from the steps and from boats. It is loud, formal, and completely absorbing, and it has been done in some form for a very long time.

A boat is the better seat if you can get one — you are looking at the priests with the city behind them rather than the back of a crowd.

Your guide

Local, which matters here more than anywhere: the lanes behind the ghats are unmarked, unmapped and too narrow for a vehicle, and finding your way back out alone at night is genuinely difficult.

Practical

Around four hours on the ground in Varanasi.

Shoes come off at the temples. Modest dress. Carry very little — the ghat crowd at aarti is dense.