Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 1 – The Sunderbans
14.10.2018 Working the "exotic" cruises - that is what the company calls any river cruise outside of Europe - is somewhat like vacation. Usually I have at least 140 guests…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 2 – Reaching Kolkata
16.10.2018 I slept early every night here on board – by 22:00 latest I was out! There is no TV in the room and it is dark outside. The windows…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 3 – Kolkata – City of Joy
18.10.2018 Kolkata, also known as Calcutta, which was the official name until 2001, is the capital of West Bengal. Situated on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it is the principal commercial, cultural, and…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 4 – Colonial history & Ganga Sunset
19.10.18 Like always I got up very early to enjoy the view and do some "paper work". Breakfast as usual and then we took our country boat across to Chandannagar…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 5 – Temples, dung cakes & markets
20.10.2018 Same as every day I got up by 05:30, opened the window and did some "work". Do not get me wrong, normally when working on a ship, I have…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 6 – Mughal Heritage & no AC
22.10.18 My every-morning-ritual got interrupted this morning .... Well, maybe not really, though. Every 6 or 12 hrs or so the generator get changed - one goes off and the…
Cruising the Ganges – River of Life – Part 7 – Last days cruising
23.10.2018 This morning was an early start for everybody. With sunrise the Captain lifted the anchor at 05:30 - this is heard pretty much everywhere on the ship, which is…
The Ganges – River of Life – Part 8 – Overland to Bihar
25.10.2018 Today we would be leaving the ship and continue our journey overland - still following the River Ganges. Leaving the ship to go on the land program in India…
The Ganges – River of Life – Part 9 – Temples & The Bodhi Tree in Bodhgaya
26.10.2018 Everybody had a relaxed short lunch break and at 14:30 we got ready to visit Bodhgaya. With our bus it took some 15 min to reach the town from…
The Ganges – River of Life – Part 10 – Varanasi – The Holy City
28.10.2018 It was a short night! My alarm went off at 04:30 and I met our guide Mukund in the Lobby at 05:15. Nobody overslept or chickened out - Varanasi…