SLOW BOAT THROUGH INDIA

Natasha Dragun joins Uniworld's Ganges river journey, trading India's Golden Triangle for slow travel and sacred moments. From temple bells at dawn to jackfruit curries and sari-clad shorelines, this is India in its most soulful form.

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India greets you in whispers - the sigh of wind through neem trees, the crackle of incense, the rustle of marigolds strung at temple gates.

It's a place I've returned to more times than I can count, yet never in quite the same way. This time, the rhythm is slower. I'm here not to tick off cities but to follow a path carved by devotion: from Delhi's chaos to the spiritual hush of the Ganges.

There's something about seeing India from water level that changes your perspective. The country unfolds not as a spectacle, but as a sequence of intimate moments. Before boarding the Ganges Voyager II - Uniworld’s floating boutique hotel that glides between villages and holy towns linking Kolkata and Mayapur in the Bengal region of the country - I journey inland, tracing history through sandstone forts, mirror-palaced cities and marbled monuments. India’s most spiritual river might not yet be in sight, but the transformation has begun.

Capital assets

Delhi is all tension and tenderness. I weave through Chandni Chowk in a rickshaw, breath catching on spice-laden air and the glitter of elaborate saris. Humayun's Tomb offers reprieve: symmetrical, serene and bathed in golden light, it's a prelude to the beauty still to come in Agra.