The Indian museum is the largest museum from India, and one of the largest from the world. This museum is rich with plenty of old collections, excavated items from archaeological site, skeleton, mummy, etc. They have organized the museum in a different galleries where people can move freely. If you like culture, history and archaeological stuffs then it would take several hours to visit the museum.
This Indian museum in Kolkata was founded during 1814 by Asiatic Society of Bengal. The founder curator of the museum was a Danish botanist (I love people who are botanist). Currently the museum has six sections and amongst those I’ve liked the Art, Archaeology, and Geology section. I didn’t like the other three sections which are Anthropology, Zoology, and Economic Botany. Different people are having different choices. You may like the other three sections compare to my favorites.
I started my visit with the Geology gallery. The gallery comprises with different kind of rocks, stones, mineral substances, etc. They in different shapes and sizes. Plenty of them are colorful too. I haven’t seen too many collection of different stones before. Also few of the things I’ve only heard from chemistry. So it was nice to see those things in live. Probably that’s why I liked this section.
From the art section of Indian museum I’ve liked the paintings. Few of the paintings are from Mughal and Bengal. The Archaeology section was the most amazing to me. India is the country of millions of god and goddesses. This museum is rich with plenty of statue of different god and goddesses. Few of them were curved thousands of year back and found around the Archaeological site. There were so many god and goddesses that you’d get tired after observing them. It seems like never ending collection. I’ve liked the coin gallery as well that has plenty of items from Mughal era.
How to go:
This Indian museum is located at the heart of Kolkata city. A foreigner may find it difficult to go there using public transport (unless they are used to with South Asian public transport). It would be better to hire a taxi cab to go there. This place is near to the Esplanade. There are plenty of buses from different places use to run through Esplanade. Also the Kolkata metro rail goes beside this place. You can take any of those. For my case the Museum was a walking distance from my hotel. GPS coordinate of the Indian museum is (22°33’28.6″N 88°21’02.1″E).
Opening time & Ticket price:
For the Indian citizen the entry fee is 20 rupee. For the foreigners the ticket fee is 500 rupee. Opening time for the Indian museum is 10am to 5pm everyday except Monday and public holidays. I am not sure but during winter the museum may be closed after 4:30pm.
Where to stay:
There are plenty of hotels around the Kolkata city. But not all of them accept the foreign guest. Hotels from Kolkata needs to fulfill some criteria to take a foreign guest. So it can happen that you may find a cheap hotel, but they won’t be able to give you a room. But don’t worry, those numbers are very few. You can look here for a list of hotels from Kolkata.
Where to eat:
If you are a Western foreigner, and can’t handle too much spice then look for the restaurants which are suitable for your tongue. Look here at tripadvisor suggestion for best restaurants from Kolkata.
If you think you need something more than that, a bit more spicy, then there are plenty of restaurants around which serve the Desi Indian foods. The food is cheap and very tasty in Kolkata.
Now, if you think you need more than that. If you can handle the spice and also want to have the real food of Kolkata, then I’d suggest you to taste the street foods at least once. There are plenty of different street foods around. Once again it can upset your stomach. So think before doing it.
Indian museum,
Dharmatala,
Kolkata,
West Bengal,
India,
Gps Coordinate (22°33’28.6″N, 88°21’02.1″E),
List of Hotels near Indian Museum.
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icwow.blogspot.com/
Friday, 18 September 2015
