Rishikesh

The Ganga at Rishikesh is not the brown river of the plains but a fast, cold, jade-coloured torrent, and the town is built around watching it. On the east bank, Swargashram and Ram Jhula are a mile of ashrams, sadhus and stone steps; Parmarth Niketan's evening aarti, sung by young brahmacharis to a giant Shiva seated in the river, fills those steps every dusk. Across the water, Triveni Ghat holds the older, rougher aarti where the whole town comes.

Upstream, the Laxman Jhula of 1929 has stood closed since 2019 while the new Bajrang Setu takes its crowds, and Tapovan's cafes serve buckwheat pancakes to yoga students between classes. The Beatles came in 1968 to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Chaurasi Kutia, wrote much of the White Album, and left; the ashram, inside Rajaji Tiger Reserve, is now a graffiti-painted ruin you can wander. Adventure begins a few kilometres north: the Shivpuri-to-Rishikesh rafting run through rapids named Roller Coaster and Golf Course, the 83-m Jumpin Heights bungee at Mohan Chatti, cliff jumping at Brahmapuri.

The Neelkanth Mahadev temple sits 32 km up a forest road; Kunjapuri's hilltop shrine gives a sunrise across the Shivaliks to the snow. In March the International Yoga Festival draws teachers from fifty countries. Rishikesh is vegetarian and alcohol-free by law, and the days here have a rhythm of river, chant and stillness that even the traffic cannot break.