Ganga Books Emporium

The other kind of bookshop: the one where a paperback changes hands three times before it settles. Near the German Bakery on the Lakshman Jhula road, Ganga Books Emporium keeps new and secondhand stock side by side: one of the town's largest walls of yoga, Ayurveda and scripture, the Vedas, the Upanishads and tantra commentaries, with novels shelved alongside for long journeys. Plenty is cheap enough to take a chance on, and the small attached cafe looks out at the bridge and the river while you decide.

New and secondhand shelves with a Ganga view: the travellers' book stop of Rishikesh