Weekend getaways from Kolkata: delta, hills and coast

West Bengal packs a delta, a coastline and a mountain range into one state, and the constraint on a weekend is entirely the road and rail time.

The Sundarbans is the trip that has no equivalent anywhere else — the world's largest mangrove forest, reached in about three hours by road and then by boat, with tigers you will almost certainly not see and a landscape that does not need them. Two nights is the minimum that makes the journey worthwhile, and the boat-based packages are the way most people do it.

Shantiniketan, at three hours, is the cultural weekend: Tagore's university town, the Saturday craft market at Sonajhuri, and a pace that is the opposite of the city's. Best in the cooler months and during the festivals.

Digha and Mandarmani, three to four hours, are the beach option. Nobody is claiming they are the finest beaches in India; they are close, cheap and by the sea, and on a hot weekend that is enough.

Darjeeling and Kalimpong are the ones people attempt in a weekend and should not. It is an overnight train or a flight plus a long mountain drive, and two days means you arrive, sleep and leave. Give the hills three nights.

On timing: the monsoon between June and September genuinely limits all of these, and the Sundarbans in particular. October to March is the window.