Kolkata and the Brahmaputra: Majuli, Kaziranga and Guwahati

What is there to see in Kolkata?

Two cities in one. The colonial centre has the grand offices around Dalhousie Square, the old Park Street Cemetery and the white marble Victoria Memorial. The north is the older Bengali city: the potters of Kumartuli shaping images of the gods from straw and clay, the bookstalls of College Street, and Jorasanko, the family home of the poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Three nights is enough to give a day to each half and a third to the Marble Palace, the Jain temples and Mother House, where Mother Teresa lived and worked.

What is a cruise on the Brahmaputra like?

Slow, and wide. The Brahmaputra in Assam is a river of shifting sandbanks, often too broad to see across. A small cruise boat travels by day and ties up at night, stopping at villages along the bank.

The main stop is Majuli, a very large river island and a centre of Assamese Vaishnavite culture, with monasteries known as satras. The boat is boarded near Jorhat, which has the nearest airport, and left downstream within reach of Kaziranga.

Why is Kaziranga special?

It holds most of the world’s one-horned rhinoceroses. The park is a floodplain of tall grass, swamp and forest beside the Brahmaputra, and rhinos are seen there on almost every drive. Wild elephants, water buffalo and swamp deer share the grassland.

• The ranges. The park is visited in separate ranges, each with its own character. This route gives drives in the central, western and eastern ones.
• Tea. Assam is tea country, and an estate near the park can be visited between safaris.

How does the route end?

In Guwahati, the largest city of Assam, on the south bank of the river. It is the practical way out: its airport has many more flights than Jorhat’s. One night there breaks the journey from Kaziranga.

A cruise keeps to its own sailing dates, so it is the part to book first. Fit the nights in Kolkata and Kaziranga around it.