The least-visited quarter, and the one we most often press on returning clients

The East

The East rewards the second-time visitor. Bengal in winter — Calcutta in December, the Sundarbans in February — gives you a literary India that the guidebooks still underserve. Odisha's coast and its weaver villages are at their best between November and March. Bihar is for the Buddhist circuit and Nalanda; Jharkhand we visit for the tribal markets and the Parasnath hills. None of it is luxury in the gilded sense. All of it is unusually rich.