Beautiful Gardens of West Bengal

  1. Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden

This is a Majestic Botanical garden that you can visit on weekends/holidays. It is around 45 minutes drive from Salt Lake, Kolkata. It is beside the Hooghly river and have fantastic natural views.

Stats: please visit the Wiki page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acharya_Jagadish_Chandra_Bose_Indian_Botanic_Garden

You can park your car in a paid parking just outside the gate of the garden. They charge around 100 rupee for the parking but you may park the whole day for the sum. There are tiny,clean restaurants just outside the main gate and they cater delicious and cheap Poori/Sabji,Cold Sweet Lassi,Treditional Bengali sweets etc. There are plentiful electric rikshaws around and you can get around the park cheaply. Also the entry fee is not much compared to many facilities elsewhere.

The garden is Vast, but be careful you take your food/drinks with you!. I ended up walking almost 4.5 hours with a half litre of water and in few hours left with no food or drinks and only few tomato ` ketchup packets  from previous KFC visits in my bag saved me! Also rest rooms are in terrible conditions. No male rest room had a door and I find myself a terrified inmate inside ladies toilets, holding the lockless doors pulled from inside, fearing the scolding from a ladies mob that may show up anytime!

It disappointing see how the park maintenance is neglected! Most of the cement benches across the park and also on the side of river Hooghly was broken and most of the utility and other buildings were either looked so old, you feel risky to enter. Many of the good old structures are just got abandoned now because of no maintenance. Also there is no good cafes/food corners inside this vast park.

It is pity that such a would be marvelous place in its present conditions.

Apart from the said Cons, the park allows refreshing walks in amazingly beautiful natural landscapes!

Here are my recommendations to the management for improvement:

1. Make sure you have secure/neat toilets. It doesnt matter you charge a small sum. 

2. Please setup few tea/juice stalls inside park.

3. Setup few lodges inside park. It will allow visitors spend a weekend in this fantastic place and have fantastic workout too.

4. Repair the cement benches and other facilities inside the park.
 
Here are few picks from my clicks on my visit. Sorry no photo of the Grand Banyan tree because my camera battery drained by the time I reached there.:







The Garden offers tranquilizing views 

The centre circle where all the path ways merge







view of River Hooghly

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