Sampan Travel

26/02/2026

Join Sampan on this 14 day journey up the hidden road into the former Buddhist Kingdom of Sikkim. Explore Darjeeling with Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, first man to summit Everest. We will delve into the history of Sikkim in its Tibetan Monasteries and the Palace at Gangtok, before spending 3 days hiking through the woods.

Sikkim, squeezed between Nepal and Bhutan, tucked under the belly of Tibet, is one of India’s smallest and most remote states. Once an independent Buddhist Kingdom, this hidden land used to encompass the towns of Darjeeling and Kalimpong. It was the principal thoroughfare of the Old Tibet Tea Trail, launching pad of British expeditions of the Great Game, and holy grail for keen botanists such as JD Ho**er. That road is now lost. But Sikkim remains.

Our journey starts in Darjeeling, where Jamling will lead us to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute before taking lunch at his family residence. Here we will hear stories about Jamling’s father and the heritage of Sherpas and the Himalayas. We will be given access to the family’s private museum and that evening over drinks Jamling will present a screening of his movie “Everest”.

We will next journey to Kalimpong, described by Indian Prime Minster Nehru in the 1950s as a “nest of spies.” In the years between the British left and the Indian annexation of Sikkim, during the crux of the Cold War, Kalimpong was home to a cast of colourful characters, including the Dalai Lama’s brother and Foreign Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Gyalo Thondup.

We will then enter Sikkim – described as a “beyul” or “hidden land” by early Tibetan travellers. After exploring Gangtok and learning how Sikkim came to be annexed by India in 1975, we will spend three nights hiking through the quiet woods of Sikkim, visiting monasteries and staying overnight in small Sikkimese cottages.

Our tour will end at the Glenburn Tea Estate. Overlooking the hills of Tukdah, the Glenburn Tea Estate is at the pinnacle of hospitality in the Darjeeling area. Our final two nights will be spent in the lap of luxury, sipping “silver tips” in porcelain cups.

Sampan’s The Hidden Road journey will take place 18 April – 1 May 2026. More here:

Hike through the foothills of the Sikkim Himalayas and explore Darjeeling with Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of the Tenzing Norgay.

18/02/2026

In November this year, we launch “The Great Hooghly Bazaar” – a literary journey up Bengal’s mightiest river.

We will be joined on the river by historian Robert Ivermee, author of “Hooghly: The Global History of a River”.

In his book, Robert writes:

“During its time in the global spotlight, the Hooghly was witness to the best and worst of human nature. It saw curiosity, generosity, and friendship, along with beauty and creativity in the production of art and literature or scientific and technological innovation. Simultaneously, it witnessed violence, cruelty, greed, and exploitation, often accompanied by pretensions of cultural, religious, or racial superiority.”

Bengal was one of the richest provinces within the Mughal Empire (1526-1857), governed by the Nawabs in Murshidabad, on the eastern banks of the Hooghly River, 200 kilometres north of where today lies Kolkata.

Five hundred years ago, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Bengal by sea, initiating a period of upheaval and destruction. Word had spread among traders that Bengal was a land of abundant natural wealth. In 1580, the Portuguese secured permission from the Mughal Emperor Akbar for the foundation of a Portuguese settlement at the highest point on the river that seafaring vessels could safely navigate. This settlement became the city of Hooghly.

Robert writes that “the boom of Portuguese Hooghly would last just fifty years.” Emperor Shah Jahan, grandson of Akbar, was concerned by the growth of Portuguese influence. In 1632, his forces destroyed the city. However, a precedent had been set.
Towards the end of the 1600s, the Danish had settled at Serampore and the French at Chandannagar, both on the western banks of the river. While the efforts of Danish missionaries ultimately withered, the ideas of the lumières birthed with the French Revolution, were later elevated as a counterweight to British imperialism. Robert argues that the settlement of Chandannagar was championed as an island of liberty, equality and fraternity in “an English-dominated sea of despotism and despair.”

In the twentieth century, ideas of representative government and human rights rooted in Enlightenment philosophy would be mobilised by Indian nationalists in the guise of the Bengal Renaissance.

Robert will be with us throughout our 7 days on the River Hooghly, taking part in a programme of curated talks and panel discussion with other writers, filmmakers and environmentalists who’ve thought deeply about the world through which this river runs.

Booking is now open. Contact us to see the full itinerary and reserve your cabin.



More here: https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/specialised/great-hooghly-bazaar/

09/02/2026

Over millennia, Bengal’s Hooghly River has drawn to it both secular migrants and pilgrims in search of the sacred. It has inspired poets and powered empires. Traders and adventurers from across the world have journeyed here. As a result, the settlements on its banks are a melting pot of ancient tradition and global influences.

 

In his seminal book "Hooghly", Robert Ivermee writes that “During its time in the global spotlight, the Hooghly was witness to the best and worst of human nature. It saw curiosity, generosity, and friendship, along with beauty and creativity in the production of art and literature or scientific and technological innovation.”

The Hooghly has also seen violence and cruelty. In 1947, the great Partition saw Bengal split in two. The Hooghly became the western boundary that dissects the Ganges Delta between India and Bangladesh, making this region what Sam Dalrymple describes as one of the most fortified and fenced zones on the planet.

In November 2026, Sampan is launching "The Great Hooghly Bazaar". Cruising upstream, we’ll explore India through the prism of this river. Excursions will be complemented with curated talks by writers who have thought deeply about the world through which this river runs.

Starting and ending in Kolkata, aboard the ABN Rajmahal () we will make morning excursions to the Hooghly Imambara, Plassey, and the Mughal city of Murshidabad. Afternoons will be peppered with talks and panel discussions. There will also be plenty of time to sit, read, have a drink and watch the life of the river pass by.

The Great Hooghly Bazaar is a floating exploration of ideas – with great food in good company – on one of the world’s most interesting rivers. We hope you can join us.

The Great Hooghly Bazaar takes place 24 November – 4 December 2026. Booking is now open. Contact us at hello(at)sampantravel.com to see the full itinerary. 

More information here: https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/specialised/great-hooghly-bazaar/

Photos from ABN & Parker Hilton.

10/01/2026

At the heart of Odisha’s spiritual identity, Jagannath’s form is strikingly abstract. He is all face and big round eyes, a form denoting no beginning and un-ending, with a curling, benevolent, blissful smile. The latter is sometimes mistaken for a dapper moustache. Either way, he cuts a jaunty figure.

Jagannath’s official residence is the Jagannath Temple at Puri. Once a year he is bathed, catches a cold, retires from all public appearances for a week, and then revives himself to visit his aunt at the Gundicha Temple, three kilometres away. This is the Ratha Yatra festival, where the idol is placed on a massive, beautifully decorated wooden chariot pulled by thousands of devotees. It is from this that we get the English word “juggernaut”.

There is much to love about jolly Lord Jagannath. And yet for Christian missionaries who arrived through the ports of eastern India in the 17- and 1800s, Jagannath was regarded as the “core of idolatry”. In his book Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu, Michael J. Altman writes that the Scottish missionary Claudius Buchanan presented Hinduism through Jagannath as a "bloody, violent, superstitious and backward religious system".

In 1872, British civil servant William Hunter observed an Odissi dance performance in devotion to Jagannath, in Puri, and wrote that “dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush.” By the late 1800s, the so-called “anti-dance movement” sought to ban these forms entirely and in 1910, the colonial government prohibited temple dancing, plunging artists into poverty and stigmatising the art as morally corrupt.

The banning of Odissi seems to be one of the more petulant acts of the British in India. Abir Mukherjee, who headlines Sampan’s "Death on the Brahmaputra" journey, celebrates the Bengal Renaissance, birthed in Kolkata, as one of the best confluences of Western and Eastern thought. It is a pity that such a fertile coming-together didn’t take place in Orissa.

"Orissa Weave" is our journey through eastern India. 19-28 February 2026. Come join us.

https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/specialised/orissa-weave/

Photos: Debabrata Patra, Santanu Chakraborty, Mystery Cat, Rambha Palace.

10/01/2026

Not only one of the oldest dances of India, Odissi, the dance of Orissa, is today celebrated as the pinnacle of Indian classical dance. Odissi came from the great temples of Orissa, performed by female dancers known as devadasis. For the devadasis, Odissi is fundamentally a devotional dance in honour of Lord Jagannath.

At the heart of Odisha’s spiritual identity, Jagannath’s form is strikingly abstract, a style rooted in tribal traditions that predate classical iconography, leading some to class him as a non-sectarian deity. He is all face and big round eyes, a form denoting no beginning and un-ending, with a curling, benevolent, blissful smile. The latter is sometimes mistaken for a dapper moustache. Either way, he cuts a jaunty figure.

Jagannath’s official residence is the Jagannath Temple at Puri. Once a year he is bathed, catches a cold, retires from all public appearances for a week, and then revives himself to visit his aunt at the Gundicha Temple, three kilometres away. This is the Ratha Yatra festival, where the idol is placed on a massive, beautifully decorated wooden chariot pulled by thousands of devotees. It is from this that we get the English word “juggernaut”.

There is much to love about jolly Lord Jagannath. And yet for Christian missionaries who arrived through the ports of eastern India in the 17- and 1800s, Jagannath was regarded as the “core of idolatry”. In his book Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu, Michael J. Altman writes that the Scottish missionary Claudius Buchanan presented Hinduism through Jagannath as a "bloody, violent, superstitious and backward religious system". He labelled Jagannath the Moloch, whose shrine was Golgotha, and fabricated allegations that children were sacrificed in the "valley of idolatrous blood shed to false gods".

By the late 1800s, the so-called “anti-dance movement” sought to ban these forms entirely and in 1910, the colonial government prohibited temple dancing, plunging artists into poverty and stigmatising the art as morally corrupt.

The banning of Odissi seems to be one of the more petulant acts of the British in India. It recalls to mind a passage in William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal, where he writes of how the “relatively easy relationship of Indian and Briton … gave way to the hatreds and racism of the high-nineteenth century Raj […] It was not the British per se, so much as specific groups with a specific imperial agenda – namely the Evangelicals and Utilitarians – who ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism.”

Abir Mukherjee, author of the brilliant Wyndham & Banerjee novels – and who headlines Sampan’s "Death on the Brahmaputra" journey – celebrates the Bengal Renaissance, birthed in Kolkata, as one of the best confluences of Western and Eastern thought. It is a pity that such a fertile coming-together didn’t take place in Orissa.

In Abir’s second novel, "A Necessary Evil", Captain Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee travel to a fictional princely state in Orissa. Although de jure ruled by debauched maharajahs, the kingdom is de facto in the hands of the maharanis, who would defend their power if challenged by the British, by quoting Queen Victoria as their model.

One such a maharani says to Captain Wyndham in Abir’s book:

“Do you think a woman cannot lead a nation? Would you believe me if I told you that the opposite is true? For two hundred years, your people have wielded a malign power in India, corrupting our rulers till they are no more than your feckless lackeys. In such a world, it is us, the women of the zenana, safe in our sanctuary beyond the pernicious reach of your Residents and our advisers, who have been the guardians of our culture and our heritage.”

"Orissa Weave" is Sampan's journey through eastern India. The tour takes place 19-28 February 2026. Do come join us.

https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/specialised/orissa-weave/

07/01/2026

On 24 August 1690, Job Charnock of the British East India Company, founded a settlement on the River Hooghly’s swampy eastern bank. In Abir Mukherjee’s novel "A Rising Man", a British police officer reflects upon this fateful moment.

“Its climate was as hostile as almost anywhere in the world, […] as though God himself, in a fit of petulance, had chosen everything in nature most abominable to an Englishman and set it down in this one cursed place. So it stood to reason that it was here […] that we should see fit to build Calcutta, our Indian capital. I guess we like a challenge.”

The East India Company’s progression from trade to power-grab is described by William Dalrymple in "The Anarchy" as “the supreme act of corporate violence in world history.” After the defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the EIC emerged as the dominant force on the river.

Charnock’s swampy settlement became Calcutta, which grew to be the second city of the British Empire. That which was a “ruin” when “Clive of India” turned up in 1756, was within forty years described by Governor General Wellesley as “a mass of superb palaces.”

By the end of the nineteenth century, Robert Ivermee writes, Calcutta was an imperial megacity, connected to regional, subcontinental, and global networks of industry and commerce by the technology of steam. One British official was to proclaim:

“There are probably few cities in the world that, from so humble an origin, and apparently under so unfavourable conditions, have within so short a period attained the position now occupied by the capital of India. … [] Few would have ventured to predict […] that physical drawbacks would be made to yield to the indomitable energy of a foreign race; than in spite of morasses, malaria, hurricanes, and the difficult navigation of a treacherous river, Calcutta would in the nineteenth century be an emporium of trade of the first magnitude, and the Capital of an Empire in East.”

Sampan’s "The Great Hooghly Bazaar" in November 2026 will begin and end in . Over the course of 10 days, we will explore India through the prism of the river that helped shape it. Our journey combines morning excursions with an afternoon programme of talks and conversations with leading writers, historians and environmentalists who have thought deeply about the world through which this river runs.

More here:
https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/specialised/great-hooghly-bazaar/

31/12/2025

Earlier this month joined our Downtown walking tour and took these beautiful photos. 

This walking tour teases out the stories and secrets of a city with a turbulent history. As well as visiting the Secretariat and the principal colonial buildings in downtown Yangon, our guides take you to lesser known and lesser frequented locations which nonetheless have stories to tell.

 

More here: https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/experiences/streets-yangon/

19/12/2025

We will be in Darjeeling with Jamling Tenzing Norgay in April 2026 before proceeding onto the former Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim. We look at historic and contemporary migration from the Hooghly and share news from this part of the world. - https://mailchi.mp/afc052bc0457/tiger-of-the-snows

16/12/2025

In 1947, with the departure of the British came the partition of India. Bengal was split in two: West Bengal became a state in Hindu-dominated India, while the rest became the eastern wing of Muslim-dominated Pakistan, provoking huge migration across this new border.

The River Hooghly remained in India, while some towns, such as the medieval city of Gour, just north of the Ganga, were split in two. In his book Shattered Lands, historian Sam Darlymple writes:

“It being evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims, Radcliffe’s Bengal Boundary Commission had decided to make the sloping terracotta ramparts of the Kotwali Gate into the border of India and East Pakistan […] The greatest city of medieval Bengal – a central symbol of Bengali identity – had itself been partitioned.”

With the break-up of the British Indian Empire, national borders were erected and stymied the mass (if not always voluntary) movement of people. Sunil Amrith, author of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia, examines the fate of these “orphans of empire” who “were so intensively connected under British colonialism and so intensively disconnected after it.”

The Bangladesh 1971 Liberation War, when what was then East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan, led to an influx of refugees into India. Of these 10 million, K.S. Nair writes: “[I]t was then, and remains [...] the largest migration of distressed people since the grim records set during WW2.”

India supported the Bangladeshis in 1971, but tensions between the two nations peaked in 1975 when India constructed the Farakka Barrage to divert water into the Hooghly, affecting the flow downstream in Bangladesh.

The Farakka Barrage is just one of many diversions on the Ganga river system, significantly altering its natural flow. The reduced freshwater flow downstream has resulted in increased saltwater intrusion from the Bay of Bengal, affecting the sensitive Sundarbans mangrove forest.

In her essay “The Greater Common Good”, Nobel laureate Arundhati Roy writes:

“Big dams are obsolete. They’re uncool. They are undemocratic. They are a Government’s way of accumulating authority (deciding who will get how much water and who will grow what where). They’re a guaranteed way of taking a farmer’s wisdom away from him.”

The control that India has over the flow of water in Bangladesh remains a sore point of contention between the two nations. A 30-year treaty was signed in 1996 – and is due to expire in 2026 …

In November next year, we will be exploring all this and more on our Great Hooghly Bazaar. More information here:

https://www.sampantravel.com/journeys/great-hooghly-bazaar/

09/12/2025

Bengal was one of the richest provinces within the Mughal Empire (1526-1857), governed by the Nawabs in Murshidabad, on the eastern banks of the Hooghly River, 200 kilometres north of where today lies Kolkata.

Five hundred years ago, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Bengal by sea, initiating a period of upheaval and destruction. Word had spread among traders that Bengal was a land of abundant natural wealth. In 1580, the Portuguese secured permission from the Mughal Emperor Akbar for the foundation of a Portuguese settlement at the highest point on the river that seafaring vessels could safely navigate. This settlement became the city of Hooghly. (One likely origin of the name “Hooghly” is the Portuguese word "gola", denoting the storehouses on the river’s banks.)

Robert Ivermee writes that “the boom of Portuguese Hooghly would last just fifty years.” Emperor Shah Jahan, grandson of Akbar, was concerned by the growth of Portuguese influence. In 1632, his forces destroyed the city. However, a precedent had been set.

Towards the end of the 1600s, the Danish had settled at Serampore and the French at Chandannagar, both on the western banks of the river. While the efforts of Danish missionaries ultimately withered, the ideas of the lumières birthed with the French Revolution, were later elevated as a counterweight to British imperialism. Robert Ivermee argues that the settlement of Chandannagar was championed as an island of liberty, equality and fraternity in “an English-dominated sea of despotism and despair.”

In the twentieth century, ideas of representative government and human rights rooted in Enlightenment philosophy would be mobilised by Indian nationalists in the guise of the Bengal Renaissance.

In November 2026, Sampan is launching our "Great Hooghly Bazaar". Cruising up the Hooghly, we’ll explore India through the prism of the river: it’s spirituality, its history and its ecology today.

Onboard the ABN Rajmahal, there will be a programme of curated talks and panel discussion with writers, filmmakers and environmentalists who’ve thought deeply about the world through which this river runs.

Precise details will be available soon, and booking opens in January. Let us know if you wish to be kept updated.

Discover the Hooghly’s global history through curated talks and a river cruise, with leading writers, historians and environmentalists.