Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday flagged off the world's longest river cruise, MV Ganga Vilas, which offers a 51-day trip from Varanasi to Dibrugarh via Bangladesh covering a 3,200km distance.
The cruise will cover 50 tourist destinations, including world heritage sites, national parks, river ghats and major cities like Patna in Bihar, Sahibganj in Jharkhand, Kolkata in West Bengal, Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Guwahati in Assam, reports Hindustan Times.
The cruise will start from Varanasi and then travel to Patna, Sahibganj, Kolkata, Dhaka, Guwahati and Dibrugarh.
The ticket price for this luxurious cruise per day will be around 25,000 to 50,000 rupee. The total cost for the entire trip will be around 20 lakh rupee for each passenger.
The international cruise is being offered by Antara Luxury River Cruises. Tickets can be booked from their website. Now the bookings are not open as the ongoing voyage has been booked by a Switzerland company. The next voyage is likely to be held in September for which booking will open.
MV Ganga Vilas is the first cruise vessel to be made in India. Thirty-two tourists from Switzerland, who will take the first journey, were welcomed at the Varanasi port with garlands and tunes of shehnai, reports NDTV.
They will visit various religious and historical places in Varanasi before setting out on the cruise.
The cruise's Director Raj Singh told news agency PTI that this five-star moving hotel has 18 suites with a capacity of 36 tourists.
Apart from this, it has accommodation for 40 crew members. The modernist ship is 62 metres in length and 12 metres wide and requires a draft of 1.4 metres, he added.
