Our new vessel, the environmentally and socially sensitive MV Taguar Haor, will commence its first cruise with an Easter cruise towards Sundarban, calling at the fascinating Bhola Island, and the historic City of Barisal, on the way. Passing through the Ganges Delta, an international centre of trade for over 4,000 years, and past the site of the ancient city of Vikrampur, from where, in mid 12th Century, the Buddhist monk Atish Depanker left the University/Vihara(recently rediscovered, and commemorated by a Pagoda built by Govt of China), to restore Buddhism in Tibet.

Our fully guided cruise will take in some of the outstanding natural beauty and culture of Bangladesh, and some of its astonishing history.

Bookings can be made in person at our office, or online at

Prices from $175 per person per night in a Family cabin, $200 in Twin Cabin, $300 in Stateroom. All prices inclusive of Breakfast, and Table d’Hotel Dinner. Rooms all a/c, with h/c bathrooms attached.

Finally, Bangladesh truly Unlocked, to the discerning visitor

For more information please contact : rivercruise.reservations@tigertoursbd.com

About a 90minute journey on the Sylhet Highway to this extraordinary site, enclosed by a 5.3Km rampart, and moat, from which surface finds have been
made for over 70 years.

Materials so far excavated include ‘hundreds and thousands of amethyst, jasper, chalcedony, agate, quartz and carnelian beads, as well as weights of semiprecious stones and terracotta, from 6th Century BCE’, as well as silver ‘punch’ coins from the same period, which may be the earliest coinage in the world.

All of which proves that the 5,000 year old Gangetic basin civilisation reached this far east, and that Wari, identified by Professor Dilip Chakrabarti of Cambridge University with Sounagaora of the 2nd Century Ptolemaic gazetteer, was probably its easternmost point, close to the Ganges Delta where Strabo, the Roman historian, in 1st Century CE, describes as a destination of merchants, trading in silk.

We would hope to have Professor Sufi M. Rahman, of Jahangirnagar University as our guide on the site, where he is leading the 11th year of excavation, and we shall visit the private museum of the Pathan family, who have been local schoolmasters since the 1930s.

Lunch boxes or BBQ

$80 per person, including lunch, $30 child

Colour, festivity and food. Bangla New Year, a centuries old tradition, is the first day of the Bangla Calendar celebrated in its full glory. Here New Year comes with the summer sunshine and a crisp weather that brings the colour to the nature.

Preparations take weeks. Dance teams from all over the country gather to participate in the parades, the largest of them held in the capital near University of Dhaka, and a dance show. This festival is well known for its variety of dancers with very colorful costumes and masks. Craftsmen work to produce the many traditional items, such as decorated clay pots on display. Then, in the week before the festival, the stalls are put up and the traditional food including extraordinarily designed cakes are prepared, so that everything is ready for the big day.

Originating from the ancient culture of Vedic Solar worshipping and later influenced by the Hijri Lunar Calendar, observing the first day of summer as the year’s first day was fixed on the date of Mughal Emperor Akbar's ascension to the throne in 1556 and has been an integral part of the Bangla culture, history and farming based economy. All have been blended into a unique celebration marked by feasting, ceremonies, and other observances symbolizing the real experience of Bengal.

In the tradition so clearly described in, ‘THE KITE RUNNER’, the Old Dhaka Kite Festival, which in fact runs over 3 days, commencing on 14, January, although
with considerable preparation, especially amongst the young, is also timeless, and ageless.

Not just the colourful and skilful making and flying of the tiny, light kits, but also a ruthless contest of skills in the real purpose of ‘cutting down’, the heroes of the festival being those who cut down most of the others!

A social experience to be enjoyed with food and hospitality but denizens of the City, at an excellent viewpoint for enjoying the spectacle.

$50 per adult, $25 child

For over 2,500 years the Ganges Delta, which is now Bangladesh, was the centre of one of the world’s great trade routes: The Southwest Silk Road.

By land and sea traders either sailed around the subcontinent, when weather permitted, or made their way across the Arabian Sea to Indus, and from Taxila, across to Patna on Ganges, thence into Bangladesh. All were heading to the Great Brahmaputra which formed a simple, well protected passage to the junction with Teesta, where traders had the choice between taking the route up to Sikkim, and through to Tibet, or further on up the Brahmaputra to the north of Assam, thence on the ancient ‘Ledo Road’ across northern Myanmar and into ancient Yunnan Province of China.

The wealth of the Silk Road created great ancient trading centres like Wari Bateshwar, Egarasindhur, Vikrampur and Sonargaon, but also drew invaders from Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey and even Abyssinia, then European nations, Portugal, France, Britain, Holland, Denmark. It was the British East India Company who laid the foundations of two hundred years of extraordinary creation of wealth that built over 100 palaces in Bangladesh and countless Stately Homes in Britain.

Visitors today can explore these ancient routes, by land and by water, as well as having informed guided visits to the ancient cities, and the collections of archaeological finds. The many great palaces also repay exploration in the skill and beauty of construction, as well as exploration of the rich lifestyles of the ‘Lords’ of the rivers and lands, and a colourful history of piracy and invaders, contesting for the riches that flowed along the ‘Road’

Silk Road Packages :

1, 2, 5 days, fully escorted tours available, from $95 per person per day.