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A mystical, mighty river of extremes and singularities, the Brahmaputra in fact changes its name five times along its course, which begins more than four thousand metres up in the Tibetan Himalayas, making the Yarlung Tsangpo, as it is called here, the highest of the world's main rivers. Rushing to the east through the Tsangpo Gorge, one of the deepest on earth, it descends some three thousand metres through lethal whitewater rafting territory and pristine natural habitat frequented only by unique wildlife and the indigenous Bodo people. It enters the plains of the most eastern edge of India in Arunachal Pradesh before being joined by two other rivers as it enters Assam, where it widens and becomes the sacred Brahmaputra, or 'Son of Brahma' – the only river in India and Bangladesh to bear the name of a male deity. It flows through Bangladesh under yet another name before ending as a huge delta in the Bay of Bengal. Aside from being one of the seven holy rivers in Hindu mythology, the Brahmaputra is amongst the very few in the world to have an up-river wave due to its funnel-shaped join with the sea, which concentrates the force of the incoming tide.