Sundarban Tiger Camp

You arrive by water: a drive from Kolkata to Gadkhali, then the camp's boat down to Dayapur Island, opposite the Sundarban National Park, with the Pitchkhali River alongside. The camp has been at this since 2004 — the trailblazers of Sundarbans tourism, by its own account — and it remains a practical way into the largest mangrove forest on earth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home of the swamp tiger.

Painted rooms, no televisions

There are twenty-one rooms across five categories, every one hand-painted by a local artist with scenes of the Sundarbans, every one with a private balcony — and, quite deliberately, no television. Dinner is at Fisherman's Wharf, a restaurant hung with fishermen's tools, where the crab, fish and vegetables are bought locally and the cooking leans Bengali.

The evening's entertainment is a folk play about the forest goddess — and here it still means something.

That play is the Bonobibi Jatra, the tale of the goddess whom the delta's fishermen and honey collectors — of every faith — petition before entering the tiger forest. Days go to cruise safaris along the waterways with the camp's local naturalists, birdwatching, honey-collection tours and village visits; evenings to a sundowner at the Mangrove bar while adivasi dancers perform, with a library and recreation room for the hours in between.