In a once-in-144-years celestial alignment, Noni Ware joins millions of pilgrims at India's Maha Kumbh Mela festival, to witness a spiritual spectacle where the Ganges becomes a sacred conduit for salvation.

I arrived at Kumbh Mela on the back of a motorbike from Prayagraj. It was, as most journeys can be in India, a thrilling if terrifying beginning to a trip exploring the State of Uttar Pradesh. The first part of the journey began at Kumbh Mela, one of the most important of the Hindu festivals which is normally celebrated every six and every 12 years. This year ( 2025)  was an exceptional year to celebrate.

An astrological super star line up, the conjunction of Jupiter and the Sun in Aquarius, a moment that many of us would have been unaware of, but in India a signifier of enlightenment and purification. This celestial arrangement of planets had not occurred for the past 144 years and I, along with 660 million others had come to celebrate this moment. Over a period of 44 days, from January 13th to February 26th, more than double the entire population of the US had come to Triveni Sangam near Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh to take part in the Maha Kumbh Mela.
There are four holy sites for Kumbh Mela (or ‘The Festival of the Sacred Pitcher’) Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh is considered to be the most sacred, where the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers converge. It is only here that the Maha Kumbh Mela (the great Kumbh Festival) takes place, a once in a several generations celebration. My arrival at the Festival also coincided with one of the most important dates at Kumbh, February 26, the Maha Shivratri Festival, which celebrates the divine union of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati.

Over 15 million people arrived to bathe on this day alone, a holy dip at Kumbh Mela signifies a  cleansing of one’s sins and leads to “moksha” salvation. Trying to board one of the blue painted boats required navigating through a crowd of almost unimaginable scale, an arterial flow of people surging towards the banks of the River Ganges. There had tragically been stampedes in the weeks before I had arrived, where 30 people had died, the barricades breaking under the sheer volume of people. Wading through fetid black mud, plastic bottles and discarded clothing I managed to board my boat and we rowed upstream, the “Ganga Baahna”, offerings in the form of flowers and food placed carefully on wide green leaves floating past us.
At the point where the three rivers met (the mythical Saraswati River is unseen but said to flow beneath the Ganges) the boats emptied as people jumped into the water, submerging themselves and offering up prayers. I did not go into the water, but watched as my boat along with thousands of others formed a floating wooden city in the middle of the river. From here it was almost possible to make sense of the scale of humanity around me, to be just far enough away from the crowds rather than in them to comprehend what an extraordinary moment this was.

More than fifteen million people arrived to bathe on the day that I was there, for the Maha Shrivati Festival, fifteen million people on boats, in the water, on the river banks or the bathing “ghats” (small areas set aside for people to bathe who had not boarded the boats). It was incredibly joyous to watch, so much anticipation and delight at having made it here, for many it had taken weeks to make the pilgrimage on foot. In the water there was no difference between rich and poor, it did not matter where you had come from, which caste you belonged to. The River Ganges made no judgement but  silently flowed past us all absorbing the sins of 660 million people.
On land, stretching as far as the eye could see at this 10,000 acre site were tents, to put this in terms of a gathering we can conceptualise this is like 20,000 Glastonbury Festivals. But the tents here at Kumbh Mela housed spiritual gurus and Akharas who greeted their followers, some with only twenty or thirty devotees, others with thousands.

There are 13 Major Akharas and they are very much at the heart of Kumbh Mela, our guide informed me that no-one in India needs a therapist, the Akhara’s provide spiritual and personal guidance to each of their devotees. I sat with  the  Naga Sadhus,  their much photographed ash-covered bodies and matted hair reflecting devotion to Lord Shiva my forehead decorated in ash with the Tripundra mark. In one of the smaller tents I joined an orange robed guru whose wise words I clearly did not understand, but there is in each of the tents a feeling of peace, an escape perhaps from the madness outside as much as spiritual enlightenment.  Many families had spent the full month at Kumbh Mela, camping under roughly constructed tents made from saris and plastic tarpaulins, their pots and cooking utensils neatly delineating their tiny plot. Stalls selling long wooden beads, pyramids of orange carnations and mounds of bright spices lined the dusty roads. There were loudspeakers every five yards which for 24 hours a day echoed with either spiritual chants or the desperate messages from families who had lost a relative in the crowds and wanted to be reunited.

I was sleeping in one of the tented camps set up along the banks of the river but little sleep was had as the relentless beeping from cars and motorbikes making their way over one of the 30 bridges which had been built to carry the staggering numbers of people, made thinking your own thoughts let alone dreaming impossible. If you have read descriptions of India; the noise, the smell, the chaos, the colour, the rubbish and then imagine all of this life condensed into two stretches of river bank and with twice the population of the United States moving there for six weeks.Religious tourism is on the rise with an estimated 450 million trips made annually for religious purposes. For many countries religious tourism around its historical and religious heritage is a significant part of their tourism market. Saudi Arabia for example received 17.5 million religious tourists last year and by 2030 that number is expected to reach 30 million visitors. 

In Brazil which hosts more than 200 religious events annually including the Cirio de Nazare procession attended by 2.5 million people, religious tourism is valued at US$15 billion. As more people seek deeper meaning and purpose in their lives combined with a growing interest in visiting places of religious significance, the predictions are that pilgrimage tourism will become ever more popular. I am not sure that anyone could have predicted the 660 million pilgrims who visited Maha Kumbh Mela and I could not have predicted that the stars aligned and I was lucky enough to be one of them.

Explorations Company’s 14-day journey through Uttar Pradesh offers a deeply spiritual and immersive experience, centred around the 2031 Ardh Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. The journey includes three nights in Delhi, three nights at Saraca in Lucknow delving into Sufi traditions, and three nights at Taj Nadesar Palace in Varanasi to witness sacred rituals along the Ganges and Buddhist heritage in nearby Sarnath. It culminates with three nights in a luxury tented camp in Prayagraj for an intimate experience of the Ardh Kumbh Mela. Priced from £16,800 per person (based on two people travelling), the itinerary includes international and domestic economy flights, private transfers, exclusive sightseeing, and immersive cultural and spiritual experiences, along with visits to grassroots initiatives supporting traditional crafts and community empowerment.

Email enquiry@explorationscompany.com; call +44 136 785 1018 or visit the Explorations Company website.