Varanasi

Each evening priests hold fire and perform a rite facing the river. The steps fill up, so many watch from a boat on the water.

Before sunrise a rowed boat passes the flights of steps one after another. People enter the water to wash at that hour and the bank is crowded.

Cremation happens on these steps, wood is stacked and the fire never goes out. Photographs are not allowed, so people simply stand and look.

A gilded tower rises above and the entrance waits where a narrow lane finishes. Security is tight and almost everything has to be left outside.

A brick stupa stands where the Buddha first taught. Temples built by several countries in their own styles surround it.

A sari woven on a hand loom with gold thread takes months. Looms can be heard working from the shops along the lanes.

The southernmost flight is wider and quieter than the rest. In the morning it becomes a place for yoga and for playing music.

Across the river a royal fort holds a museum in part of it. Old carriages, weapons and instruments for reading the stars are gathered there.

Lanes barely a shoulder across tangle behind the riverbank. When a cow stands in the way, everyone waits for it to move.

Seven priests turn fire in the same motion while bells are struck. It runs about an hour and small lamps are floated on the river at the end.

A Shiva temple the Birla family built at the heart of Banaras Hindu University, founded in 1916. Its white marble tower rises high enough to be seen across the campus. Unlike the old-city shrine, security is light and people of any faith may go in.

A museum inside Banaras Hindu University, holding miniature paintings, Banarasi textiles and Gupta-period sculpture. A stone Krishna lifting Govardhan hill is its best-known piece. The campus is vast, so take a cycle rickshaw from the main gate.

An 18th-century Bengali queen built this Durga temple, its walls and spire painted deep red. A square stepped tank lies beside it. Monkeys swarm the place, hence the nickname monkey temple; carry nothing edible in your hands.

Tradition says the 16th-century poet Tulsidas founded this Hanuman temple in a shady grove. Tuesdays and Saturdays bring the most worshippers, and besan laddoos come back as blessed offerings. Each spring the grounds host nights of classical music.

A white marble temple built in 1964 where Tulsidas is believed to have written his epic of Rama. Verses from that poem cover the inner walls from floor to ceiling. Durga Kund is its next-door neighbour, and pilgrims do the pair in one go.

A fort on a rock above the Ganges, upstream from Varanasi, held in turn by Sher Shah, the Mughals and the British. From the ramparts you look down on a great bend in the river. The round trip takes half a day, so hire a car in the morning.

Steps painted in red and white stripes climb to the Kedareshwar Shiva temple. South Indian pilgrims favour it, and signs in Tamil and Kannada appear among the shops. It is calmer than Dashashwamedh, a good place to settle on the stairs facing the river.

Instead of a deity, this temple enshrines a relief map of undivided India carved in marble. Gandhi opened it in 1936. Mountain ranges and river courses are cut to scale in height, best seen from the upper gallery rail.

The shrine of Kaal Bhairav, guardian deity of Varanasi, whom pilgrims visit to take leave before departing the city. At the door a black thread is tied around your wrist. The lane is tight, and the line is shortest early in the morning.

A Shiva temple a Nepali king built above Lalita Ghat in the 19th century, in Kathmandu valley pagoda style. Every roof strut is finely carved in wood, some with erotic scenes. Terracotta and timber set it plainly apart from the other riverside temples.

Raja Man Singh built this riverside palace around 1600; Jai Singh II later set astronomical instruments on its roof. They are smaller than Jaipur's but perch right over the river. From the roof, past the exhibits, Dashashwamedh Ghat lies alongside.