Travel to West Bengal

West Bengal offers a traveler an endless vista of lush paddy fields, bamboo groves, jungles, mighty rivers and a rich cuisine with a variety of delicious sweets and fish delicacies.

The best time to travel to West Bengal is between September and March, though hill stations like Darjeeling are pleasant even in midsummer. Most towns in West Bengal are well connected by road and railway.

Travel to West Bengal
How to reach West Bengal
Top cities of West Bengal
Where to stay in West Bengal
Wildlife in West Bengal
Tourist Attraction in West Bengal

There are two airports, at Kolkata, the capital city and Baghdogra, in the Himalayan foothills near Siliguri. However all the roads are not in good condition and travelers would do best to reserve their places in trains, buses and hotels in advance.

Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal, was the capital of British India till 1911. It has a number of colonial buildings including the famous Victoria Memorial.

Another attraction of Kolkata is the huge cantilever bridge across the Hooghly River.

Kolkata also has the National Library, the National museum, the Asiatic Society and the ashram founded by the famous 19th century mystic, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at Dakshineshwar. Another place worthy of a visit is the Sunderbans delta, around three hours from Kolkata, where the Ganges flows into the sea.

This is a place of huge distributaries, some of them miles across, and dense mangrove forests. It is home to the Gangetic freshwater dolphin, the marsh crocodile and a large population of notorious man-eating tigers.

Bishnupur, with little terracotta temples with detailed bas-reliefs is another attraction, just a few hours from the capital. Near Bishnupur is the town of Bankura, famous for its pottery.

Some of the finest teas in the world are grown in Darjeeling in the Himalayas. It may be reached either by road or by the quaint mountain railway, which has been running from 1881. The laying of this railway has been described by the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the greatest engineering feats in the world. The steam locomotives are the oldest functioning ones in the world.

In the Northern plains of Bengal lies the Jaldapara wildlife sanctuary where one can see the Indian one-horned rhino.

The most carnivalesque festival of West Bengal is the Durga Puja or simply Pujo that is celebrated over 10 days in October. Every street corner is decorated with a pandal containing a huge idol of Durga, the 10-armed Mother goddess. Pujo is an occasion for a host of cultural activities and the sharing of delicious Bengali milk-based sweets such as the Roshogolla, Sondesh and Chum-chum.

No travel to West Bengal would be complete without some shopping for its famous handicrafts, the exquisite cotton and silk sarees of Murshidabad, the lavishly embroidered bags of Shantiniketan, the Dokra metalwork and the papier maché puppets of Purulia. West Bengal travel is famous for it’s Bengali sarees, Bengali sweets and fish delicacies. I think a travel to West Bengal is worth it, if you get so much in return, food and sarees, that even a local tourist wil remember for a long time to come.

Many people go to work in the beautiful city of Kolkatta, which is it’s capital, but for official reasons or not a travel to west bengal is a must-see on your list of tourist friendly states. Sometimes people just travel to west bengal for shopping for rosgollas, which is a famous sweet made from milk cheese, all Bengali sweets are made from milk cheese, but rosgollas and sandesh are the most famous of them or even Bengali sarees. Hence it’s not necessary to have a travel planned to this state, since travel may turn out to be a frequent requirement for shopping to this state.