Cruise on Ganga from Kolkata to Varanasi

not sure whether anybody posted this news already

Cruise on Ganga from Kolkata to Varanasi


Tourists will now be able to revisit the country’s colonial past from Kolkata to Varanasi through the 1,280 km cruise on the river Ganga with West Bengal Tourism launching the service from tomorrow........

sad part is

..........The demand for the cruise is very high and tickets are already booked till 2011, he said.

Interesting news yes. Another sad thing though,

Oh well. Nice idea (That's what, 1700 to 2500 Euros? Well, they don't say how long the trip takes. I guess if one has the money, could be somewhat reasonable.)

it's 14 nights

between $5000 and $6000 per person.

ridiculous, if i may say

http://www.pandaw.com/downloads/Gang...0on30Sep09.pdf

They do -

Averaging 2+ knots per hour average (includes stoppage, overnight docking etc.)

Yikes, those are some high rates, reminds me of "Palace on Wheels"!
Wading would be faster! Yeah, even if I could afford it, I'd pass...

A ship full of rich tourists passing slowly through Bihar and UP......I can already see the headlines.

Aha, thanks, I'd overlooked that. So going by my calculations, that would be around 113-167 Euros per day, or 8,000-12,000 Rs., for foreigners at least. If mine were wrong and those dollar prices above are right, quite a bit more.

I guess assuming luxury cabin and ditto meals included, that might be not far from other luxury rates one sees for hotels & resorts & restaurants and stuff (throw in a fine A/C car). Palace on Wheels would in fact be rather more expensive even, as far as I know (has been quoted here last year to be US$ 800 a day for two in the off-season, US$ 1,080 in season).

Pity though whenever someone does come up with these things, they often seem to find it necessary to make it so prohibitive, but oh well. One comes across it with many national parks, alas; with rates not even necessarily way over the top, but still often rather if not way out of league for many I'm sure (esp. again considering "foreigner" rates). But, so be it I guess; one just doesn't go there.