Bakkhali is seaside resort in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India. It is located on one of the many deltaic islands spread across southern Bengal. Most of the islands are part of the Sunderbans, barring a few at the fringes. Some of these are joined together with bridges over narrow creeks. This small island juts out into the vast expanse of the Bay of Bengal.
It has a 7 km long beach stretching from Bakkhali to Frasergunj, a twin beach, with gently rolling waves. These are twin towns now forming one continuous locality. Casuarina trees line the beach. Besides an occasional holiday the beach is more or less crowded in all time of the year. It is hard to find the barren pockets nowadays. A small stretch near Bakkhali has been lighted up. It is a hard beach suitable for cycling or even driving. It has become hard to take a long walk as the beach has been totaly polluted by the waste generated by the insane tourists. Even sea-bath has been hard to do as wastes and garbage floats and comes along with the waves which may cause some skin problem.
The hotels are located at a walking distance of 5 minute(minimum). I would suggest you not to take the food from the hotel's restaurant as they are damn expensive. There some small restaurent near the beach from where you can get a better meal in a low expense. The foods are not so good in Bakkhali so its better not to go into the non-veg item. Even the fish are very much expensive as the city although it is a fish trading centre. Even the cost of seeing side seen is not reasonable. The place is not worth of staying more than one day.
There is a small entry - fee forest which you will come across before going to the beach provided you stay in Bakkhali. The forest has been used by the people for the wood and fuel and also for responding nature's call n the early morning. So as you can imagine the path is always littered with....so while walking be careful. The forest leads to the beach. Sometimes if you are lucky you might get to see some deer in these forest.
The vendors will force you to watch a number of side scene - Henry's Point and Light House, Red Crab Island etc. The Henry's Point and the Light House are located at the same place. I might have gone to other places if I had not seen the Light House. It was highly disappointing.....The so called Light House..
If your mind is excited with the thought of watching a Light House don't go there. It can be call a Watch Tower but that too is very hard to call because at the top most place from where you can get a birds view is strewn with garbage, wastes, dead leafs etc. The place has not been taken care of properly. Besides, the view is not so breath taking as it might appear to you after spending the money for side scene. The bird eye view from the top of the Light House:
There is a beach near the Light House at a walking distance of 15 minute. The beach is better, more cleaned and is less crowded than Bakkhali beach. Its really good but not better than Puri beach off course. Here if you want you can take a sea-bath...
While on your way to the beach you will find dense shrubs along the side of the road, huge pond, a small swamp type of thing, and a small wooden bridge for crossing the swamp area...
Look carefully at the below picture... At the end there is our so called Light House... Just behind the light house a number of small interesting creature you will get to see- Yellow and Red Crab, Swam fish and many more....
On the way towards the beach situated near the Light House...
Although the Light House was highly disappointing but the surrounding scenic beauty compensated it...On returning back from the Henry's point and Light House....
Frasergunj is the actual place where fish trading business takes place. Unfortunately, I visited the place near dusk and could not see anythng. There is a wind power station in Frasergunj. So you can see many windmill all around. The beach is not so populated and polluted like Bakkhali yet it is not so solace like Henry Beach. On the way to Frasergunj...
Bakkhali at Dawn....
Please don't misinterpret yourself...its not Flamingo. Its just a model in a Government lodge which is situated in Bokkhali. Till now no hotel in Bokkhali is as near to the sea as this one. From the outside you can get the picture of the quality of the hotel. Near the lodge the West Bengal Government has started a project for the preservation of the crocodile and deer. The entry fee is Rs. 2 for each person. This was really far far better than the Light House. Inside the project area, there are some hotels which you have to book earlier and their prices are quite high than the local hotels.
When I visited there was three crocodile in three pond and a large area was allotted to deer. You have to see the deer at a very far distance as these deer don't come very near to the tourists like they do in Alipore Zoo, Kolkata. But you can get a clean view of the crocodiles although they lie as a dead one. But you can catch them in action if you throw one or two tiny stones just beside crocodile like I did.....but if you throw at them you can't see anything...but please don't throw in a manner which can hurt them.....
