EAST INDIA

Stretching from the coast of the Bay of Bengal to the heights of the southern Himalaya, eastern India encompasses undulating hills and leafy tea plantations, Buddhist monasteries and ancient temples, remote mountain villages and a lingering colonial legacy.
Kolkata (Calcutta), the former capital of the British Raj, lies towards the Bay of Bengal, offering a mixture of vibrant, often chaotic, city life with majestic colonial monuments. Inland, reaching into the cooling foothills of the Himalaya, perch towns with elaborate Buddhist monasteries, and Darjeeling, the British summer capital, surrounded by lush tea plantations. In the distant reaches of eastern India are further British hill stations such as Shillong, the tranquil tea estates of Assam, and superb wildlife in the Kaziranga National Park, home to one-horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, wild elephants and more.