No. 11 of 50 · Wildlife · West Bengal

Track tigers by boat in the Sundarbans

The only mangrove where tigers swim. You don't see one — you see the pugmarks, the still water, the silence.

A tiger at the water's edge in the Sundarbans mangroves

There are no roads. You move by boat through tidal creeks in the largest mangrove forest on earth, and the tigers here swim — a fact you feel rather than merely know once you are down at water level.

Sightings are genuinely rare, and the trip is better framed as time spent in the mangrove than as a hunt. The same forest is the storm defence for millions of people downstream, and it is shrinking.

Stay with us

A wooden river-lodge in Pakhiralay, beyond the last road.

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Patience, a guide, and a great deal of luck