Prince Charles garlanded as he arrives in India

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla visited a military academy Thursday on the first full day of their Indian tour which began with garlands and a blessing beside the River Ganges. The royal pair wore strings of jasmine and marigold flowers at a welcoming ceremony on Wednesday evening in the northern city of Rishikesh, where The Beatles learnt transcendental meditation in the Sixties. Camilla and the heir to the British throne, wearing a grey suit, were blessed in front of a fire by their host, a heavily bearded and long-haired local holy man called Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji. After a night in a spa hotel where rooms start at $500 a night, the royal pair continued Thursday to the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, the capital of the northern state of Uttarakhand which was ravaged by flash floods in June. Sporting military uniform, Charles watched training and shook hands with the cadets at the academy, which was set up in 1932 to prepare Indian recruits for Britain's famed Sandhurst military school. The Duchess of Cornwall, in a white dress with blue flowers, was treated to an equestrian show at the sprawling school, which also has a memorial to those who died in India's struggle for independence from Britain. The royal couple, who last visited India in 2010 for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, were presented with a silver memento and a framed photo of the academy before they left for a nearby Forest Research Institute. After an Indian tour taking in five different cities in nine days, the couple will travel to Sri Lanka where the prince will represent the Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo. Charles and Camilla will be in Sri Lanka from November 14-16.