HERE AND THERE

Join us for a walk through Varanasi at 6 o'clock in the morning. Why are we up so early? We're heading to the river, along with all these people, before sunrise. At the start of the day, people bathe in the river and/or pay their respects to the gods. It's hard to imagine this city shutting down, ever. Varanasi is India's most ancient city, and one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. Its ancient name was Kashi; the Mughals and the British called it Benares. Th

And we're back in the big smoke: Kolkata — called Calcutta until 2001 . Kolkata has a population of 4.5 million, the fourth biggest megacity in India. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port. Our ship is moored in the section from where indentured labourers set off in the 1800s to work in foreign lands: the Caribbean, South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji. Today this part of the port has been sold to developers who are building a high-end club and dining precinct, but it

Early mornings on the river are indescribably peaceful and serene. The feathery silvery heads of the elephant grass blend into the mist and the borders between sky and water are indistinct. The colours are simply sublime. We’re in the town that was once the centre of the Asian universe – seriously. Murshidabad was the old capital of Bengal, the largest and richest state of India, and the wealthiest town in Asia. Murshidabad's peak was from 1725 to 1765. But the British East I

Still heading upstream on the Ganga. We arrived in Matiari early in the morning. We’d been woken up by the sound of metal being beaten. Matiari is a village known for its metalwork, brasswork in particular. Many years ago, men from this village were employed in Kolkata in the metalwork industry. When they became too old to work, they returned to their village where they passed down their skills. Kolkata merchants now outsource metalwork to the artisans in Matiari. Scrap metal