The first foreigner to walk the entire length of the river Ganges – a distance of 1600 miles - is returning to India to visit people he met 25 years ago to see how the country has changed.
The first foreigner to walk the length of the Ganges is returning to India next week to visit people he met on his padyatra 25 years ago. Storyteller and nomad Dennison Berwick walked solo from Ganga Sagar, in the Bay of Bengal to Gau Mukh near Gangotri on a pilgrimage that took him seven months. His account of the 2000-mile journey, "A Walk Along the Ganges", was published by Hutchinson in London in 1986 and by Rupa Paperbacks in New Delhi in 1993. The walk was also used by the British charity, The Save the Children Fund to raise £25,000 (Rs 2 million) for projects in India.
"Everyone says how much India has changed in the last quarter century so I'm excited to see for myself through the lives of the people I met on my pilgrimage. I met people from all walks of life -- rich and poor, urban and rural, and of every religion and always received a great welcome and hospitality. How has life changed for them and their families? I'm eager to find out," said Berwick.
The intrepid adventurer, who has also written two books about his solo journeys in the Amazon rain forest and stayed with the Yanomami Indians, also hopes to complete a journey he failed to accomplish in 1984 by trekking over the glaciers between Gangotri and Badrinath. "For 25 years, I've kept safe an old book I bought in Delhi about the journey of 6 sadhus over the glaciers in 1947. I'm hoping to be able to follow in their footsteps," said Berwick. "I recently set up Voyage Press to make out of print books available again and I'm hoping "Across Gangotri Glaciers" will be republished early next year," he said.
Dennison Berwick was born in Bradford, England, in 1956. He emigrated to Canada in 1980. He now lives aboard a 32-foot sailboat and is planning a 2500-mile voyage along the coast of northern Labrador in Canada in 2009-10 to retrace the journey made by an Inuit sea captain with two Christian missionaries in 1811.
Itinerary in India:
Tuesday Sept. 9th – arrival in Kolkata from Bangkok, Thailand.
3 or 4 days in Kolkata and Ganga Sagar
Mid-September - travel to Gangotri to acclimatize and trek to Badrinath
October – visit Delhi, Kanpur, Mirzapur, Varanasi etc. along the Ganges
October 21st – leave India from Kolkata.
