East India Tour

East India tours take you through a dramatically different landscape, with mangroves in the Sundarbans and lofty peaks in the high Himalayas. The majority of tours begin in Kolkata. The moss-covered headstones in South Park Street Cemetery, the Paresnath Jain temple, and the Armenian Church all tell stories of the city's multi-cultural influences over millennia. Sail the Hooghly early in the morning to visit temples upriver, and finish the day with a traditional Bengali meal. Bengalis are food obsessed, and Kolkata, for all its flaws, is a foodie's paradise. Don't leave without sampling the delectable Bengali cuisine and conversation.

Large estates grow some of the world's most coveted tea around the hill station of Darjeeling. In a colonial setting, sip a cup of pure Darjeeling first flush amidst mist-covered tea gardens. The sound of Buddhist monks chanting fills the air in Pelling, Sikkim. Orchids abound in gardens, and rhododendrons abound in forests. Snow-capped ranges and the striking five-peaked Mount Kanchenjunga can be found in every corner of the state.

In Assam's Kaziranga National Park, one-horned rhinos graze leisurely, and otters swim energetically in the muddy rivers that flow by. Assam is one of the Seven Sisters, a group of seven northeastern states. This land of exceptional natural beauty is home to rare wildlife such as hoolock gibbons and great hornbills, as well as dramatic waterfalls and hidden caves. It is also an ethnically diverse region, home to indigenous tribes such as the Angami Nagas and the Bodos.