Sundarbans National Park Forest Cruise

The Sundarbans National Park is home to the largest mangrove forest in the world and is located in the South West of Bangladesh and a smaller part in the West Bengalen region of India.

From Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, you can reach Sundarbans by boat and it will take you about half a day to get there.

Flying eagles in the..

The nearest city to the park would be Khulna and from here you could travel by bus.

Sundarbans literally means the beautiful forest and that's exactly what it is, a gorgeous forest!

Besides the many mangrove trees the Sundarbans National Park is home to a unique flora and fauna because you can find both salt water lagoons as fresh water lagoons which makes for a perfect habitat.

In the west the Sundarbans border with the Bay of Bengal and here you will be able to spot the famous bengal tiger.

Snake in the Sundarbans..

We spend three days on a cruise ship touring through this amazing region of Bangladesh and besides the amazing panorama's, the great weather and the delicious food I really enjoyed the wildlife spotting.

The first one we spotted was the Ganges dolphin, one of the four species of river dolphins in the world and a very elegant animal.

Green snake in the..

The Ganges dolphin is rather shy and it's hard to take some nice pictures as they come up for just a few seconds to get some air before they dissapear in the dark waters of the Padma river. More to the south the water is more salty and we also spotted the Bottlenose dolphin here. The bottlenose was more curious and swam along with the boat.

Besides wildlife it was very interesting to see al the villages alongside the river. We even stopped for a swim in the river which was great and afterwords we could enjoy a real coconut cocktail, straight from the trees!

Photo of an eagle in the..

On our second day we made a stop for a walking safari to the beach. Guided by real armed rangers we observed all kinds of birds, plants and deers untill we reached the Bay of Bengal. Here you won't find any white sand beaches but a more rugged landscape. The panorama was beautiful though with all the fishing boats floating in the bay.

In the afternoon we took a break for a treatment at the local mud pools. We weren't allowed to swim to the pools from the ship because of an alligator alert so they took us there and we had the best time!

Mangrove forest of the..

At sunset we went on another walking safari through the forest where we spotted some monkey's and deer coming to the lakes to cool off and have a drink.

On our last day we made a ride on a typical fishing boat to explore the some smaller canals of the river. Again we spotted a lot of monkey's and even some snakes. At the end of the day we headed back north to Khulna. From Khulna we took the nightbus to Dhaka where we arrive around five in the morning.

It was an amazing trip and especially if you're travelling through to India this Southern region of Bangladesh is beautiful. The food was great, we had a fish and chicken BBQ dinner which was delicious and the staff on the cruise ship was amazing.