India boating holidays: a cruise on the Brahmaputra river

Sunset over Kaziranga National Park and the Brahmaputra river

(Image credit: robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo)

published 12 June 2023

From its source in Tibet, the Brahmaputra river flows through northeast India to Bangladesh, merging there with its equally mighty sister, the Ganges, and draining into the Bay of Bengal. A cruise along its Indian stretch on the “elegant” 18-cabin river boat Charaidew II is a delight, says Sophy Roberts in the FT. In seven days, you travel 110 miles through Assam, an “overlooked” region that is rich in rare flora and fauna and home to several distinct cultures. You’re unlikely to pass many other tourist vessels (I didn’t see one), and you’ll have plenty of time on deck to observe the vast, hypnotic river and its ever-changing shores.

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Beginning in May, the monsoon transforms the area into “a landscape that’s more water than earth”, forming and reshaping sandbanks known as chars, “encouraging elephants to swim in search of new habitat” and, in bad years, forcing more than a million people to relocate to safer ground. The river’s width has nearly doubled in the past century, a process accelerated by climate change, and yet human settlement still thrives on this “edge-land”. Among the ethnic groups who inhabit it are the Ahom (with roots in Myanmar) and the Mising, who have a Tibetan-Burmese history. And though the Charaidew II is “styled after British-era steamers”, with cane furniture and tropical plants on its teak deck, its crew are all local people with long experience of navigating the river’s treacherous eddies.

Kingfishers flash past “like Mughal jewels”, and fishermen’s nets cast from the banks “fall with the grace of dragonflies landing on a pool of light”. There’s a chance to visit a tea estate, as well as several wonderful historic sites, including the palaces and temples of the Ahom kingdom. The trip includes a stay at a lodge next to Kaziranga National Park, which is one of the best places in India to see tigers, rhinos and other wildlife.