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.
A trip to West Bengal covers three separate regions: the Himalayan north, the Ganges delta in the south and the plateau in the west. The state holds three World Heritage sites, and the third of them was added to the list in 2023. Kolkata is the way in for the delta and the plateau, and the Sundarbans runs on boats and permits rather than on roads.
Kolkata airport connects to the whole state. A short guide to getting ready for a trip in India covers papers and bookings.
The state is long and narrow, and the three regions have almost nothing in common.
We cover North Bengal separately, including Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the Dooars, because the north works as its own trip.
Kolkata to Bolpur, for Santiniketan, is about three hours by train. Kolkata to Bishnupur is about four hours. Kolkata to Godkhali, the jetty for the Sundarbans, is about three hours by road.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata is the main entry point. Howrah and Sealdah are the two big railway stations and they serve different lines, so the ticket names the one to use.
Three, and the newest was added in 2023.
| Property | Year |
|---|---|
| Sundarbans National Park | 1987 |
| Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, in Mountain Railways of India | 1999 |
| Santiniketan | 2023 |
Santiniketan was inscribed on 17 September 2023 at the committee session in Riyadh, as India's 41st property. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway sits in the north of the state and still runs as a working line.
Bishnupur's terracotta temples are not on the list. They sit on India's tentative list and have never been inscribed.
No. Durga Puja in Kolkata is on a different UNESCO list, for intangible cultural heritage, and it was added in December 2021.
That listing covers a living practice rather than a place, so it does not make a fourth World Heritage site in the state.
Durga Puja was the first festival in Asia to be added to that list. The city fills for those days and hotel rates move with it.
The pandals are built in the streets and the whole city walks between them at night, which closes roads across central and north Kolkata.
By boat from Godkhali jetty, with a permit and a forest department guide.
The Sundarbans is a delta of tidal creeks and mangrove islands, so there is no road into it. A visit means a full day or two nights on a boat.
Boats run in the designated tourism zones. The core of the national park is closed to visitors.
The Indian property covers 133,010 hectares. The Bangladesh side of the same forest is a separate World Heritage property, inscribed in 1997, ten years after India's.
Sundarban Wetland was also designated a Ramsar site on 30 January 2019, which is a third kind of listing on the same delta.
October to February is dry and cool across the whole state.
Only for the Sundarbans, where entry is by permit through the forest department.
Tour operators and boat owners arrange the permit with the booking, and foreign nationals need their passport details submitted in advance.
Nothing else in the state needs a permit. Museums, palaces and temples sell tickets at the gate.
Our six day journey through Kolkata and the coast starts in Kolkata. Journeys Just for You books the Sundarbans boat, the permit and the forest guide as one arrangement.
Three. Sundarbans National Park, listed in 1987, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, listed in 1999 as part of Mountain Railways of India, and Santiniketan, listed in 2023.
No. They are on India's tentative list and have never been inscribed. They are protected monuments under the Archaeological Survey of India and the trip is worth making on that footing.
No. Durga Puja in Kolkata is on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage, added in December 2021, which is a separate list from the World Heritage list. It was the first festival in Asia on it.
Yes. Entry is by forest department permit and boats leave from Godkhali jetty with a guide on board. Operators arrange the permit with the booking, and foreign nationals submit passport details in advance.
Bolpur, the station for Santiniketan, is about three hours from Kolkata by train. Trains run several times a day.
October to February, when the air is dry and cool. Durga Puja falls at the start of that window and the city is full for those days.