Beautiful Howrah Station from the middle of the River Hooghly
I was planning to tour to India for long time, specifically before the pandemic. I got my new passport accordingly. But, due to the sudden pandemic all travelling were postponed in every country. Finally, on last April, my time came to go abroad when India lifted ban on tourists. I started my journey on 29th April and returned on 10th May. I am planning to write several posts on my tour to India to share my experience with you.
This distance is from the Bangladesh immigration office at Benapole, Jessore.
As it was my first India tour, so, I was planning to go with a commercial tour agency. And my primary plan was to visit the Meghalaya state of India. Later, I saw a post from a (unknown) traveler who was looking for tour mates for trekking to the Mt. Kedarkantha. He sent me the tour plans and approximate budget for 10 days. I liked the tour plan very much and the budget was also very affordable me. Two of his relatives joined with us from the beginning. Later we got another unknown tour mates. As per our tour plan, we met at Nabinagar Bus Stand on 29th April. I reached to meeting place a little early and started waiting for others to come. Finally, all 5 met together and got into a bust from the gate of National Martyrsâ Monument at 3.45pm. After meeting with others, I forgot that my 4 tour mates were very unknown to me.
Before entering into the Indian immigration office at Petrapole, with one of my tour mates.
As it was Ramadan, our bust stopped in front of a small shop on our way to the Paturia Ferry Ghat. There we took our Iftar (Ramadan breakfast) and after that we started our journey again. Around 8 PM we reached to the ferry ghat and crossed the mighty Padma River within 20 minutes by a launch and got down at the Daulatdia Ferry Terminal. We took our dinner at Bismillah Hotel and Restaurant and started our journey to the Beanpole Land Port at Bangladesh-India border. We reached to the immigration center late night (around 3 AM). We were very exhausted after the long journey to this land port and started waiting for morning when the immigration operation will start. By this time, we filled up our immigration papers. Some of us got queue for travel tax. I think immigration process started at 7.30 AM and after completing the formalities we crossed the border on foot and entered the Indian Immigration center at Petrapole. After leaving the immigration office we took our first breakfast and converted our local currency Taka to the Indian currency Rupee. We also do some of small works there before starting our main journey inside India. We bought Indian mobile SIM cards from here also. From Petrapole we hired autorickshaws to Bongaon Railway Station.
Out side view of the Bongaon Rail Station
Birdâs eye view of Bongaon Rail Station
After reaching Bongaon we took our main breakfast. The restaurant owner advised to go to Howrah Railway Station by train. He also told us the exact time of a Howrah bound train from Bongaon. According to his advice we collected ticket and got in a train to Howrah. More than one hour later we reached at B. B. D. Bag railway station beside the river Hooghly River. While crossing the Hooghly River I saw the beautiful Howrah Bridge for the first time. This is really an amazing bridge. Later that day, I crossed the bridge twice. First time by a taxi and second time on foot. While I was crossing bridge on foot in the evening colorful lights of the bridge amazed me a lot. Both side of the river also looked very glamorous to me. We went to the new market area in the afternoon. We bought some necessary items for our trekking purpose.
Howrah Rail Station and Howrah Bridge in a single frame. I took this photo with my Nikon camera.
Heavy steel frame of the Howrah Bridge.
It started raining heavily in the afternoon. We purchased ticket for Dhoon Express. We went to the platform and got almost wet due heavy rain. We took enough food and water with us for a long train journey of 35 hours (1531 km.). Finally, at 8.20 PM our train started to move towards Rishikesh. Bye bye Kolkata and see you again.
A compartment of Dhoon Express.
In Kolkata we took our lunch and dinner at Prakesh Hindu Hotel. We also ate some snacks and other delicious foods in New Market area also.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner of our first day inside India.
Links of POI that I have visited during this tour:
- Mt. Kedarkantha
- Nabinagar Bus Stand
- National Martyrsâ Monument
- Paturia Ferry Ghat
- Padma River
- Daulatdia Ferry Terminal
- Bismillah Hotel and Restaurant
- Beanpole Land Port
- Indian Immigration center
- Bongaon Railway Station
- Howrah Railway Station
- Howrah Bridge
- B.B.D. Bag
- Prakesh Hindu Hotel
- Yog Nagari Rishikesh
. This was a vacation trip. Gradually you will come to know the details of this tour in my next posts. I hope you will enjoy them also. Did you watch the video at the end of this post?
. Anyway, I took bath in another river in this tour that will come in the last post of this series. I hope you will read that post also