India Travel

Coastal Bengal

Related Properties from Gurgaon

North Bengal in North Bengal

North Bengal, where the Himalayas soar from the flat alluvial plains towards Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, holds some magnificent mountain panoramas, and also some of India's best hill stations. Most visitors pass as quickly as possible through Siliguri en route to Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the small state of Sikkim. For anyone with a bit of time on their hands, the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, home to the one-horned rhino, bison and wild boar, east of Siliguri near the Bhutanese border, makes a worthwhile detour. Besides the occasional strike, few travellers will notice, but today the region is wracked by political turmoil, with

Information about Calcutta

The efficient and friendly Government of India Tourist Office, Shakespeare Sarani (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-lpm, is your best bet for information on Calcutta,'West Bengal and destinations further afield, and can assist with itineraries and booking tours.The Government ofWest Bengal Tourist Bureau. 3/2 BBD Bagh East, arranges tours of Calcutta and package trips around West Bengal. They also issue permits and book tours and accommodation at the Sunderbans and Jaldapara wildlife parks. Tourist information counters at the airport and Howrah Station offer the same services. English-language newspapers such as the

Information on Calcutta

The efficient and friendly Government of India Tourist Office, 4 Shakespeare Sarani (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-1 pm;) is your best bet for information on Calcutta, 'West Bengal and destinations further a field, and can assist with itineraries and booking tours. The Government of West Bengal Tourist Bureau, 3/2 BBD Bagh East (©033/248 8271), arranges tours of Calcutta and package trips around West Bengal. They also issue permits and book tours and accommodation at the Sunderbans and Jaldapara wildlife parks. Tourist information counters at the airport and Howrah Station offer the same

The beach resorts in Coastal Bengal

The popular seaside resort of DIGHA. 175km southwest of Calcutta and almost halfway to Pun in Orissa, with its immense silted hard beach, was originally conceived as a health sanatorium. Direct buses run from the Esplanade terminus in Calcutta; trains from Howrah station run to Kharagpur from where you can take a bus. Alternatively you can get here on a WB tourist bureau bus. If anything, the casuarina-lined beach at BAKKHALI, 80km south of Diamond Harbour on the east side of the Hooghly, is even harder than the one at Digha. However, it's much less developed and far more attractive, and

About Calcutta and West Bengal

Unique among Indian stares in stretching all the way from the Himalayas to the sea, WEST BENGAL is nonetheless explored in depth by few travellers. That may have something to do with the exaggerated reputation of its capital, CALCUTTA, which is actually a sophisticated and friendly city that belies its popular image as poverty-stricken and chaotic. Certainly the rest of Bengal holds an extraordinary assortment of landscapes and cultures, ranging from the dramatic hill station of Darjeeling, within sight of some of the highest mountains in the world, to the vast mangrove swamps of the Sunderbans, prowled by man-eating Royal

Central Bengal

Central Bengal offers little in the way of major sights to tempt tourists off the Calcutta-Darjeeling route. It is a low-lying rural region where the pace of life is in stark contrast to that of its frenetic capital, Calcutta. Shantiniketan, built on the site of Rabindranath Tagore's lather's ashram, is a haven of peace, and a must for anyone interested m Bengali music, art and culture. The other highlights of the region include a cluster of exquisite terracotta temples in Bishnupur, the rums of Gaur, the region's seventh-century capital, and the palaces of Murshidabad. capital of Bengal's last independent

Pandua in Central Bengal

The splendid Adina Masjid at PANDUA, 18km north of Malda, built by Sikander Shah around 1370, was in its day the largest mosque in the subcontinent. It now lies in ruins but these still betray the origin of much of the building materials - carved basalt masonry from earlier Hindu temples was used to support 88 brick-built arches and 378 identical small domes, the design following that of the great eighth-century mosque of Damascus. Other monuments include the Eklakhi mausoleum - one of the first square brick tombs in Bengal with a carved Ganesh on the doorway; and Qutb Shahi Masjid,

Practicalities in Coastal Bengal

The best time to visit is in winter and spring. Getting to the Sunderbans from Calcutta is a laborious process. First you need to pick up a special permit from the West Bengal Tourist Office in BBD Bagh East, where you can also reserve accommodation in Sajnekhali or sign up for a two-day tour by bus and launch. The tours run at weekends only, leaving Calcutta at 6.30am Saturday morning and returning at 9pm Sunday, and cost from Rsl200 with food, sleeping on the boat (Rsl500 for sleeping on dry land). Long-weekend trips of two nights (three days) are laid

Along the Hooghly to the sea In Coastal Bengal

As the Hooghly bends south on its way to the sea, it becomes larger and larger; when it reaches the Bay of Bengal at Diamond Harbour, 50km south of Calcutta, it is very wide indeed. The harbour was used by the East India Company, and a ruined fort is said to date back to Portuguese pirates. The trip down here from the city, by bus or train from Sealdah station, is a popular day's excursion for Calcuttans, though it's also possible to stay the night at the Sagarika Tourist Lodge, which has some a/c rooms. Book through the tourist office

Bhavnagar in Gujarat

The coastal pore of BHAVNAGAR, founded in 1723 by the Gohil Rajput Bhavsinghji, whose ancestors came to Gujarat from Marwar (Rajasthan) in the twelfth century, is an important trading centre whose principal export is cotton. With few sights of its own, Bhavnagar does, however, boast a fascinating bazaar in the old city, and is an obvious place to stay for a night or two before heading southwest to the wonderful Jain temples of Palitana. Incidentally, it is one of the few places (Ahmedabad is another) where you'll see hand-carts being pulled by man and wife, or by women alone.

Practicalities in North Bengal

Bagdogra airport, 12km west of Siliguri and served by flights from Delhi, Calcutta and Guwahati, is connected not only with Siliguri itself, but also directly to Darjeeling as well as to Gangtok in Sikkim by helicopter.

Baripada in Orissa

A little way north of Balasore, the highway crosses the River Burhabalanga and splits in two, the right fork towards the Bengal border and the left towards the hills of the Orissan interior. Further inland, the intensively cultivated alluvial plains of the coastal strip gradually give way to patches of deciduous forest and red-latcrite soil, punctuated by termite mounds and neatly thatched villages. "The district is the traditional home of the Santal tribe. Comprising around seventy percent of the local adivasi population, the Santals are predominantly settled agriculturalists who practise a blend of ancestor worship and Hinduism, "they're known for

History of Calcutta (Kolkata)

Although Bengal was part of the Mauryan empire during the third century BC. it first came to prominence in its own right under the Guptas, in the fourth century AD. So dependent was it on trade with the Mediterranean that the fall of Rome caused a sharp decline, only reversed with the rise of the Pala dynasty in the eighth century. After a short-lived period of rule by the highly cultured Senas, based at Gaur, Bengal was brought under Muslim rule at the end of the twelfth century by the first Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-din-Aibak. Sher Shah Suri, who usurped power

Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in North Bengal

Apart from Darjeeling and the hills, most of North Bengal is well off the beaten track; few travellers venture off the Darjeeling-Sikkim-Nepal road. Probably the best reason to do so is to visit the small Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, roughly 124km east of Siliguri. The sanctuary was established in 1943 to help protect wildlife against the encroachment of tea cultivation. Consisting of tracts of tali elephant grass on the banks of the River Torsa, and set against the backdrop of forested foothills, it now shelters around fifty highly endangered greater one-horned rhinoceroses, wild elephants, sambar and hog deer. jaldapara is open from

Malda and around in Central Bengal

The large, unattractive commercial town of MALDA. 340km north of Calcutta, straddles the highway co the north and is renowned for ins local mango harvest. A natural port, at the confluence of two rivers, it was once a prosperous trading post for silk and cotton: in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it housed Dutch, French and English factories. Little of interest has survived from that period, but Malda makes a good base to explore the historic sites of Gaur and Pandua, both earlier capitals of Bengal, which can be reached by either bus or tonga. Malda is on the main line

Details of Orissa

Despite being one of India's poorest regions, ORISSA boasts a distinctive and rich cultural heritage. From a backdrop of thickly forested mountains, where adivasi communities continue a very traditional way of life, the mighty Mahanandi and Brahmani rivers meander down to the fertile alluvial plains that run along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Any visitor to Orissa cannot fail to notice the glaring contrast throughout the region, between the overwhelming vibrancy of the temples and monuments of powerful former dynasties and the desperately impoverished, drought-prone, paddy-field economy of Orissa today. Despite the seemingly idyllic existence of villages with their

Murshidabad in Central Bengal

Set in the brilliant green landscape of rural Bengal, historic MURSHIDABAD lies close to the bustling commercial town of Behrampur, 200km north of Calcutta. Several eighteenth-century monuments along the banks of the Hooghly stand as reminders of its days as the last independent capital of Bengal. Established early in the eighteenth century by the Nawab Murshid Quli Khan, Murshidabad was soon eclipsed when the forces of Siraj-ud-Uaula were defeated by Robert Clive at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, as a result of which the British came to dominate Bengal from the new city of Calcutta. Clive described Murshidabad as

Sajnekhali and the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve in Coastal Bangal

The cluster of mangrove-covered islands known as the Sunderbans, or"beautiful forest", lie in the Ganges Delta, stretching east from the mouth of the Hooghly to Bangladesh. They are home to the legendary Royal Bengal tiger, a ferocious man-eater which has adapted remarkably well to this watery environment, and swims from island to island - covering distances of as much as 401cm in one day. Other wildlife includes wild boar, spotted deer, Olive Ridley sea turtles, sharks, dolphins and large estuarine crocodiles. Among the people who find them selves sharing this delicate ecosystem with the mighty cats are honey collectors, woodcutters

Alipore in Calcutta

Around 3km south of Park Street, the crumbling nineteenth-century splendour of Alipore is slowly being engulfed by a forest of multi storey buildings. Not far from the racecourse, opposite the luxury Taj Bengal hotel, the extremely popular Calcutta Zoo (daily 6am-5pm; Rs2) houses such weird and wonderful animals as tiger, a cross between a lion and a tiger, a pegion, a cross between a pegion and a lion; a litatitigon . . . and so forth. Now threatened with closure, the zoo also has white tigers from Rewa, a reptile house, an aquarium (Rsl), a children's zoo and four restaurants.

Around Darjeeling in North Bengal

One really unmissable part of the Darjeeling experience is the early-morning mass exodus to Tiger Hill, to watch the sunrise. This can easily be combined with a visit to the old monastery of Ghoom, and the huge monastery at Sonada on Hill Cart Road Cowards Siliguri. The picturesque lake at Mirik near the Nepal border attracts weekend crowds from Darjeeling and makes for an easy day trip.