All Assam on the Brahmaputra

The Brahmaputra is not a river you look at so much as one you live alongside for a fortnight. Eleven days aboard a shallow-draught vessel takes you from the Kamakhya steps at Guwahati up…

Length: 11 days, 10 nights
From: ₹5,98,000 per person
Pace: Balanced
Stops: 5
Best months: November to April

The route

5 stops over 11 days

Guwahati
Silghat
Kaziranga
Majuli
Goalpara

Two full days in Kaziranga’s Kohora and Bagori ranges
Borgeet sung by monks at Kamalabari satra on Majuli
Golden langur on Umananda, the temple rock mid-river at Guwahati
Rock-cut Shiva lingas and Buddhist stupas at Sri Surya Pahar
Salmora potters beating riverbank clay into water jars without a wheel

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 11 days
Stops: 5
Pace: Balanced
From: ₹5,98,000

1D

Guwahati

Arrival on the Brahmaputra

You land at Guwahati and are met in the arrivals hall; the drive into town runs beside the river the whole way. Nothing is asked of you today. If the flight has been kind, walk down to the Pandu ghats at six, when the ferries switch on their lights and the far bank disappears into haze. Dinner at the hotel.

Night: Vivanta Guwahati
2B L D

Guwahati

Kamakhya, then aboard

Up early for Kamakhya, where the queue of pilgrims carrying hibiscus and vermilion starts before the doors open. Afterwards a country boat to Umananda, a rock in mid-stream with a temple and a colony of golden langur. You board at Pandu after lunch, cast off at three, and take tea on the sundeck as the city thins into sandbank and reed.

Night: Overnight on board
3B L D

Mayong

Sandbars and the Mayong bank

A full day under way. The ship makes perhaps nine knots against a current that never quite gives up, and the deck is the whole of the itinerary: skimmers on the bars, a fisherman standing in his dugout, buffalo swimming a channel. Ashore at Mayong in the afternoon, a village with a long reputation for black magic and a very small museum of it.

Night: Overnight on board
4B L D

Silghat and Kaziranga

Silghat and the central range

The ship ties up at Silghat before breakfast. Jeeps take you into Kaziranga’s Kohora range, where rhino graze the wet grassland in plain sight and the swamp deer keep their distance. Elephants cross the track without hurrying. Back on board by one; the afternoon is yours for the sundeck, and at dusk the fishing boats come out below Silghat with kerosene lamps.

Night: Overnight on board
5B L D

Kaziranga

Bagori at first light

A five-thirty start for the Bagori range, which is the one the photographers want: shorter grass, better light, and a decent chance of wild buffalo with the full sweep of horn. Tea and a boiled egg in the field. Later, the Difalu garden on the park’s eastern edge, for the withering loft and a cup of second flush drunk without milk.

Night: Overnight on board
6B L D

Biswanath Ghat

Upstream to Biswanath Ghat

Sailing again, north-east, with the Himalaya sometimes showing above the haze on a cold morning. Biswanath Ghat is a scatter of small stone temples half in the water — locals call it Gupteswar — and a bathing place used since the Ahom kings. Watch for Gangetic dolphin in the slack water off the point; they surface without ceremony and are gone.

Night: Overnight on board
7B L D

Majuli

Majuli and the satras

Majuli, the river island that loses a little of itself every monsoon. You visit two satras — Kamalabari for its discipline and Auniati for its collections — and sit through an hour of borgeet sung by monks who have been in the order since they were boys. At Samaguri, the mask-makers build Ravana’s head from bamboo, clay and cow dung.

Night: Overnight on board
8B L D

Majuli

Mising stilts, Salmora pots

Morning in a Mising village near Kamalabari: houses on stilts, apong brewed in the corner, a loom under every floor. At Salmora the potters still build without a wheel, beating clay dug from the bank into water jars. Cast off at noon and turn downstream — the ship suddenly quickens, and the same banks pass at twice the speed.

Night: Overnight on board
9B L D

On the Brahmaputra

The long run downstream

A day of distance. You pass Tezpur and Guwahati without stopping, the Saraighat bridge overhead by mid-afternoon, and keep going west into a wider, flatter river. Breakfast on deck, a talk on the Ahom dynasty before lunch, and then a long lazy stretch of char islands, mustard fields, and cattle being ferried across in flat-bottomed boats.

Night: Overnight on board
10B L D

Goalpara

Sri Surya Pahar at Goalpara

Goalpara, where the river is at its widest and the Garo hills begin. Sri Surya Pahar is the morning’s work: a hillside of rock-cut Shiva lingas, Buddhist stupa bases and Jain figures, all jumbled together and largely unvisited. In the afternoon, a country boat into the Kulsi mouth for dolphin, then a farewell dinner under the awning.

Night: Overnight on board
11B

Goalpara to Guwahati

Disembark and fly out

Disembark after breakfast. The drive back to Guwahati takes about three hours along the south bank, through betel groves and small brick kilns, with time for the Hayagriva Madhava temple at Hajo if your flight is late. Transfer to Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi airport for onward connections. This is the departure day; nothing is scheduled beyond the airport.

Night: Departure day — no overnight