India's Golden Triangle & the Sacred Ganges

Start your trip in style with included airport lounge access before your overnight in to New Delhi.

Arrive at New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport where you will be greeted by a Uniworld representative and transferred to your hotel, the beautiful Oberoi New Delhi Hotel. Its sophisticated comfort will offer you the perfect launching pad for your exploration of the city.

India’s sprawling capital city is colourful, confounding and completely captivating, an exhilarating mixture of ancient and modern, sacred and secular. Your perfectly paced, expertly-led city tour provides a soft landing, an ideal first foray into this fascinating land. The capital of modern India, New Delhi is not one city but many. Sprawling, home to 17 million people, inhabited for at least 2,500 years, New Delhi has been built and destroyed and rebuilt numerous times, and all of its conquerors have left traces. Your panoramic tour today will show you some of its most remarkable landmarks.

 After a day spent taking in the sights of scenic New Delhi, relax this evening over a delicious buffet dinner at the Oberoi.

To gaze upon the Taj Mahal is a moment at the top of countless travel bucket lists. Widely considered one of the most beautiful monuments ever created, this “elegy in marble” is guaranteed not to disappoint—especially when viewed at the magical hour of sunset, as you are fortunate enough to see it today. This morning you will check out of your New Delhi hotel and head south via motorcoach to Agra. Once known as Akbarabad, Agra was the capital of the Mughal Empire for 100 years, until Shah Jahan moved the government back to Delhi—but Agra was the site of his best-known building project, the exquisite Taj Mahal, which draws visitors from all over the world.

Featured Excursion: Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal at sundown

Is the Taj Mahal best seen at sunset or sunrise? It’s an impossible question to answer, so Uniworld guests have the rare pleasure of experiencing both. Wake up early this morning for a second visit to this unforgettable site, so you can see the white marble monument aglow with the rosy tinge of dawn. You’ll return to your hotel for lunch before you head by motorcoach to the third city in the Golden Triangle, Jaipur. Capital of the state of Rajasthan, strewn with massive palaces, it was founded and carefully planned in the 18th century by Maharaja Jai Singh II (who gave the new city his name), so even the old part of the city is laid out on a grid. The Singh family’s influence is still felt in Jaipur, though all hereditary titles in India were discontinued in 1971. Check into the romantic Oberoi Rajvilas, a luxurious oasis, and spend the afternoon relaxing at the hotel, enjoying the extensive, bird-filled gardens.

Pink is the colour of hospitality in Rajasthan, which gives you an idea of what to expect in the “Pink City” of Jaipur. You’ll see some marvellous things here, including the City Palace complex and Jantar Mantar, an ancient observatory still used by local astrologers to determine the position of the stars. What do the stars reveal about your destiny? You can find out today in your morning tour "Jaipur—Rajasthan’s Princely City". Take the afternoon to explore on your own: Shuttles will be available to carry you to and from the hotel to the major shopping district. Jaipur’s bazaars are famous for their traditional Rajasthani crafts—jewellery, pottery, hand-printed textiles and carpets—so go and enjoy the swirl of colours even if you aren’t interested in buying some souvenirs.

Settle into your beautifully appointed suite aboard the Ganges Voyager II in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), the gateway to your journey along the world’s holiest river. You leave Jaipur early today and fly to Kolkata, India’s second-largest city, the longtime capital of the British Raj, and the city many Indians consider their nation’s intellectual capital. Like Jaipur, it is young compared to the millennia-long history of the subcontinent; it was founded by the East India Company late in the 17th century. You’ll board the Ganges Voyager II, your supremely comfortable travelling hotel for the next seven nights, and settle into your suite. Enjoy dinner and a cultural performance will cap your day.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

As incredible as it sounds, India is the birthplace of four of the world’s major religions (including Buddhism and Hinduism), and Kalna—India’s “Temple City”—has some of the most magnificent examples of Hindu temples on the entire subcontinent. Kalna, once an important trade port on the river, is best known today for the magnificent Hindu temples built by the maharajas of Bardhaman in the late 18th and 19th centuries. They are your destination today. After marvelling at these temples you may opt to walk with your guide through the colourful local market or return to the ship.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

Your ship serves as a time machine today, transporting you hundreds of years into the past, as we travel to an artisan village where craftsmen use materials and techniques that have remained unchanged for centuries. Matiari, a West Bengal village nestled above the banks of the river and surrounded by farms, is also home to a thriving metal-working tradition that you will see in action today.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

Curiosities abound in India, and that includes the country’s eclectic architectural styles. But a palace with a thousand doors? Such a thing does indeed exist, as you’ll see for yourself today, along with some famous terra-cotta carvings, the ruins of a mosque and yet another cultural curiosity—the game of cricket, India’s beloved (and rather complex) national sport. Today’s adventures take you to a duo of Bengali towns - Murshidabad and Baranagar - each one boasting surprising and beautiful architectural monuments closely linked to the ruling families of the area.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

One of the world’s most sacred bodies of water, the Ganges River flows through a myriad of small villages and highly populated cities throughout India and Bangladesh. Enjoy the remarkable scenery as you sail and be on the lookout for a rare sighting of the endangered Ganges river dolphin. Also, you can visit a skilled practitioner of mehndi demonstrates how the intricate henna patterns are created and discover the meanings behind the traditional motifs.

You may choose to relax and unwind with a body massage or treatment onboard at the soothing Voyager Spa.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

Few places of worship exist on such a head-spinning scale as what you will witness today in Mayapur, the centre of the international Hare Krishna movement and home to the new Temple of the Vedic Planetarium, still under construction. Today the ship heads back toward Kolkata, cruising past lush fields of rice, sugar cane, tomatoes and eggplant, among many other crops, but your river adventure is not over. You still have some fascinating locations to visit; they lie on the opposite bank of the river from your upstream ports of call. Most students of history know a thing or two about the British colonial powers in India, but few are aware that the French had colonies here, too—including one that existed as late as the 1950s. You’ll continue to cruise toward Kolkata today, stopping en route in Bandel and Chandannagar, a little piece of France that survived in India for a couple hundred years.

Stay: Ganges Voyager II

The city of Kolkota is virtually synonymous with the enduring legacies of Mother Teresa— recently canonized as a Catholic saint—and the colonial-era British Raj, both of which you will get better acquainted with today.  Enjoy your tour  of the city including a visit to Mother Teresa’s home and sites that showcase the legacy of the British Raj. Enjoy a farewell dinner tonight.

 Stay: Ganges Voyager II

Your incredible Indian adventure ends early this morning, as you disembark and transfer to the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport for your flight home.

Alternatively, you could enhance your journey with an optional extension in Varanasi (please ask your specialist for details).