Holy Water
Cliff Diving the Ganges

You’ve glimpsed transcendence.

It was looking at you from across the room after your keytar rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Third.

But to really stare it in the face, you need more. Say, extreme physical duress.

Hurtling an inflatable buoy down Class IV rapids should do...

Which brings us to Rafting the Ganges, a four-day adrenaline-fueled camping expedition on the holiest river in India, taking reservations now.

This is what the Beatles would have done in India if they had been less into songwriting and more into rock diving.

So you’re at your go-to ashram in Rishikesh, practicing a 47-minute unblinking meditation, when you hear a voice telling you to move. It’s your driver. He’ll be taking you and your waterproof sandals an hour south to your journey’s launch point—a spartan riverside campsite. (Come to think of it, you’ve never actually needed electricity.)

For the next three days, you’ll be rafting the river’s venerated waters—people bathe here to bless themselves. (Which might make it feel like riding bumper boats in a baptism chamber, but go with it.) You’ll bodysurf the placid points, climb rocks and rappel if you feel the urge. (Go ahead, feel the urge.) After the final stretch, you’ll get a farewell lunch from a flatbed food truck—we’re thinking samosas, curries and meats-that-aren’t-beef on a stick.

Food trucks are huge in India.