Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Soumen Bhowmick
Soumen Bhowmick founded Pollen Dots in 2024 to plan journeys across India and Bhutan. He works in the Commercial Department of Indian Railways, where he has been since 2000. From 2016 to 2020 he was Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ScoutMyTrip, a community-driven road trip planning platform. There he built a nationwide network of local Scouts who helped travellers on the road, and grew the Road Trippers Club to 16 Indian cities. As a core member of Devil On Wheels, he helped travellers plan Himalayan trips and started Spreading Smiles. He has driven solo from Arunachal to Goa and from Himachal to Karnataka, and has run his own caravan for more than ten years. His photographs have won national and international salon awards, and his writing has appeared in Outlook Traveller.
The places to visit in West Bengal sit in three regions that share almost nothing. The state holds three World Heritage sites, and the newest of them, Santiniketan, was added to the list in September 2023. Kolkata is the base for the delta and the plateau, and the Sundarbans is reached by boat from a jetty three hours south of the city.
Bishnupur's terracotta temples are not World Heritage. They sit on India's tentative list and have never been inscribed.
Eight, grouped by where they sit.
| Place | Region |
|---|---|
| Kolkata | South |
| The Sundarbans | South, by boat from Godkhali |
| Digha and Mandarmani | South, on the Bay of Bengal |
| Santiniketan and Bolpur | West, Birbhum district |
| Bishnupur | West, Bankura district |
| Purulia and the Ayodhya hills | West |
| Murshidabad | On the Ganges, north of the delta |
| North Bengal | The Himalayan north, hills, tea country and the Dooars |
We cover North Bengal separately, including Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the Dooars, because the north works as its own trip.
Colonial streets, the Maidan, the river and the idol-makers' quarter.
The Indian Museum was founded in 1814 and is the oldest museum in India. The Victoria Memorial, the Marble Palace and the Writers' Building are the set pieces of the colonial city.
Kumartuli in the north of the city is where the Durga idols are built, in lanes of open workshops. The work runs for months before the festival.
Howrah Bridge crosses the Hooghly without a single bolt in its span. Ferries cross below it all day.
The tram network and the metro run north to south through the city. Both are cheap and neither needs a booking.
By boat from Godkhali jetty, with a forest department permit and a guide.
The Sundarbans is tidal creek and mangrove island, so no road goes into it. A trip is a day on the water or two nights on a boat.
Sajnekhali has the interpretation centre and the first watchtower. Sudhanyakhali and Dobanki are the other two towers on the route.
Sightings are of crocodiles, deer, water monitors and birds far more often than tiger. The forest is dense and the animals are across water.
Boats run in the tourism zones. The core of the national park is closed to visitors, and the Bangladesh side of the same forest is a separate World Heritage property.
The university town Rabindranath Tagore built, and West Bengal's newest World Heritage site.
Santiniketan was inscribed on 17 September 2023, as India's 41st property. The listing covers the whole place and the teaching built into it, rather than a single building.
Visva-Bharati is a working university, so access to parts of the campus follows the academic calendar. Bolpur, the station, is about three hours from Kolkata.
Kankalitala, Sriniketan and the Khoai are within a short drive of the campus.
Terracotta temples at one and a Nawabi river town at the other.
Bishnupur in Bankura district has brick temples faced in moulded terracotta panels, built by the Malla kings. Rasmancha, Jor Bangla and the Shyam Rai temple are the three largest. They are protected monuments and they are not World Heritage.
Murshidabad sits on the Ganges and was the capital of Bengal before Kolkata. Hazarduari Palace, built in the 1830s, holds the museum. The Katra Mosque and the Nizamat Imambara are in the same town, and the sites sit on both banks, so a ferry crossing is part of the day.
Purulia for the plateau hills, Digha and Mandarmani for the sea.
The Ayodhya hills in Purulia are open rock and dry forest, with waterfalls that run in the monsoon and dry out by March. Chhau mask villages are nearby.
Digha is the old beach town on the Bay of Bengal and Mandarmani is the quieter stretch beside it. Both are about four to five hours from Kolkata, and Mandarmani is wide enough at low tide for vehicles on the sand.
Our six day journey through Kolkata and the coast starts in the city. Journeys Just for You books the Sundarbans boat, the permit and the forest guide as one arrangement.
Three. Sundarbans National Park from 1987, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway from 1999, and Santiniketan from 2023. Bishnupur's temples are on the tentative list and have never been inscribed.
One long day from Kolkata, or two nights on a boat. The jetty at Godkhali is about three hours from the city, and the day on the water starts early.
On 17 September 2023, at the committee session in Riyadh. It became India's 41st World Heritage property, listed for the whole place and the teaching built into it rather than for one building.
Its colonial streets and the Maidan, the Indian Museum of 1814, Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly, the idol workshops at Kumartuli, and Durga Puja, which is on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.