Sundarbans

The Sundarbans is one of the last great tidal wildernesses on earth, a labyrinth of mangrove islands, mudflats, and salt-water creeks spread across the delta where the Ganges and Brahmaputra empty into the Bay of Bengal. Its name comes from the sundari tree, and its Indian core is protected at once as a national park, a biosphere reserve, and a tiger reserve, recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage.

This is a place to be read patiently rather than ticked off. The forest is the most famous stronghold of the Royal Bengal Tiger, an animal here celebrated for swimming between islands, but honesty matters: the mangroves are dense, the tigers elusive, and sightings are rare and can never be promised. What is reliably rewarding is the wider theatre of the delta, estuarine crocodiles on the banks, spotted deer and wild boar at the water's edge, kingfishers and raptors, and, with luck, Gangetic and Irrawaddy dolphins. The park is navigated entirely by boat, with watchtowers at Sajnekhali, Sudhanyakhali, and the canopy walk at Dobanki, while the innermost core zones stay closed to visitors.

MyTripMyTravel arranges the Sundarbans as an unhurried, expert-led safari. Guests are staged out from Kolkata to the jetty at Godkhali and onto a comfortable private boat with a trained naturalist, spend slow hours reading the creeks and watchtowers, and are candidly briefed that the reward here is the ecosystem itself, with the tiger a rare gift rather than a guarantee.