Things to Do in Agartala, Tripura: My Trip from Dhaka via the Akhaura Border

Agartala is the capital of Tripura, a small state in north-east India that Bangladesh surrounds on three sides. The city sits right on the border, a few kilometres from the Akhaura land port, so from Dhaka you can be there in about five hours by train and on foot. The best things to do in Agartala are the white Ujjayanta Palace, now the Tripura State Museum, and a day trip to Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary, home to clouded leopards, plus a quiet drive through rubber and tea country to Khumulwng Park.

Look carefully at a map of Bangladesh and you will notice something interesting. Most of India lies to the west of Bangladesh, and that is the part everyone visits. But there is also a chunk of India to the east: the seven north-eastern states, often called the Seven Sisters. I live in Dhaka, and one day, looking at the map, I realised that Agartala, the capital of one of them, is only about 150 km from my home by road.

I got excited for a historical reason too. The Agartala Conspiracy Case of 1968 is a famous chapter in the story of Bangladesh’s independence. I decided there and then that I would go one day.

Getting There: Train from Dhaka to Akhaura

Until early that morning, I was not sure I would go at all. It took me an hour to pack my bag, leave the house and find a three-wheeler.

My first stop was Kamalapur, the largest railway station in Bangladesh. I needed to get to Akhaura, a railway junction only about 4 km from the land border with India.

Akhaura is a junction, so trains from Dhaka to Chittagong, Sylhet and other cities all pass through it, and there are many departures every day.

I reached the station at 10:45am and rushed to the counter, where I learned that a train was leaving at 11:00. I joined a long queue. My turn came at 10:58, and the man at the counter told me the system stops selling tickets two minutes before departure. I was too late.

Then I noticed that everyone behind me in the queue was running towards the platform. The man behind me said I should jump on and try to buy a ticket on board. It did not sound like a good plan, but I had no other option. I ran as fast as I could, and when I reached the platform, the train was already moving. I took a risk and jumped in. Today, it is much easier to buy tickets in advance on the Bangladesh Railway e-ticket website or app.

The Journey

It was a long weekend in Bangladesh, and huge numbers of people were going home. The train was packed: every seat was taken, and I could hardly find a place to stand. I squeezed my way to the coach where food is sold, ordered something from one of the canteen boys and paid him. In return, he gave me a small wooden box, which became my seat for the rest of the journey. It was low, but I put it right beside a window. Bangladesh is green for most of the year, and I enjoyed the view. I may have dozed off; the rest of the trip was uneventful.

Crossing the Akhaura Border to Agartala

About three hours after leaving Dhaka, I reached Akhaura station, and a lot of people got off with me.

Outside the station, there were plenty of battery-powered three-wheelers waiting to take passengers to the border. I looked for people to share one with, to cut the cost, and quickly found two. The ride from Akhaura station to the border took less than 15 minutes.

It was a quiet land border. Immigration and customs did not take long, and there was even a scanner for luggage.

Arriving in Agartala

Crossing the border took me less than half an hour, and suddenly I was in Agartala.

When I looked at my watch, I realised the whole trip from my house to India had taken a little over five hours. Even a flight to Kolkata, the shortest from Dhaka, would have taken about six hours door to door once you add the airport formalities and the drives to and from airports outside both cities.

At the border, there were shared vehicles to the centre of Agartala. When I went, the fare was less than half a US dollar.

From the border, it is only about a 15-minute ride to the city centre.

Hotels in Agartala

I had not done any research, so I let my driver find me a hotel. Most of the hotels he showed me were very basic, so I picked one at random. The WiFi hardly worked, and the staff told me this was normal in Agartala.

Later, I found there are some comfortable mid-range hotels, though not many. For a decent stay, these are good places to start:

1. Ginger Agartala
2. OYO 30386 Hotel Gloria Inn

Things to Do in Agartala

Once I had dropped my bag, I went straight out to explore. This is how it went.

Ujjayanta Palace

This is the top attraction in Agartala. I took a vehicle from the city centre and reached the palace gate in about 15 minutes.

Let me tell you, this palace is beautiful, and it is a shame it does not get more attention. I had not even heard of it before I came to Tripura.

To understand the palace, you need a little Tripura history. Tripura is now an Indian state, but during the British Raj, it was a princely state ruled by its own kings, the Manikya dynasty.

Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya built the palace between 1899 and 1901, and it remained the royal residence until Tripura joined India in 1949. In the early 1970s, the state government bought it from the royal family, and it housed the Tripura Legislative Assembly until 2011. Since 2013, it has been the Tripura State Museum.

The palace stands in large gardens with two big ponds in front. It is white and gorgeous, and its design mixes Mughal, European and local styles, with three domes, the tallest about 86 feet high.

There were plenty of local visitors. I walked round the building and went into the museum, but I did not find it very interesting.

I came out quickly. It was getting dark, the lights were coming on, and the two-storey white building with its three domes looked splendid in the twilight.

Visiting tips: the museum is closed on Mondays and is open from around 10am to 5pm on other days. There is a small entry fee. Arrive in the late afternoon if you want to see the palace lit up at dusk.

I did not want to leave this beautiful angel, but the day was over and I had to move on.

Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary

The next day, I went to Sepahijala (also spelled Sipahijola) Wildlife Sanctuary, about 25 km from Agartala. I wanted to see the animals, but I also wanted a drive out of the city to see rural Tripura.

I walked out of the hotel and agreed a price with a taxi driver: a fixed amount plus a rate per kilometre. I had never hired a taxi without a meter like that before.

Our car sped along the roads of Tripura. I was hungry, so we stopped at a roadside restaurant, where I ordered paratha and sweets. Most people I met in Tripura understood Bangla, my language, and many spoke it too.

The road was narrow, but there was a soothing calm in the air, with green trees on both sides. Tripura is famous for agarwood, and I passed several of the trees.

I also passed tea gardens, which surprised me, as I was used to seeing them in hilly areas, and this part of Tripura did not look hilly. Later, I learned that tea planting in Tripura began in 1916, under the patronage of the Maharaja.

I reached the sanctuary in about an hour. You buy a ticket at the entrance, and there was a separate fee for cameras. I liked the place as soon as I walked in. The animals are spread across the grounds, but most of the sanctuary is forest, green and calm, with the smell of nature in the air.

Visiting tips: the zoo inside the sanctuary is closed on Fridays. It covers about 13.5 sq km and includes the small Clouded Leopard National Park. Go in the morning, when the animals are most active.

My first meeting was with a family of bears playing together. They were so cute that I wanted to hug them. Next time, maybe?

As everywhere, the monkeys were in a playful mood. This section had four species: rhesus macaque, pig-tailed macaque, capped langur and Phayre’s langur. I am no expert, so I could not tell them apart.

The hippos were busy eating. I do not think I have ever seen a hippo anywhere that was not eating. I felt a strong resemblance.

There was a herd of lovely deer, far away from me. I tried to get their attention by waving, but they were not interested.

The main draw is the clouded leopard. Its enclosure was huge and fenced, but I could not spot a single animal inside. Someone with an excellent sense of humour had put up a sign to console visitors (read the caption above).

When I had seen enough animals, I took my time exploring the rest. There are many trails through the sanctuary. They do not lead to anything in particular, but they are wonderfully peaceful, and I spent some quiet time there on my own.

Khumulwng Park

The sky had turned grey by the time I left the sanctuary. My next stop was Khumulwng Park, next to the town hall in Khumulwng, a town in West Tripura district. It is a favourite picnic spot for local families, with artificial lakes on three sides. Khumulwng means “valley of flowers”. I did not see many flowers, but the park was well planned, clean and quiet.

As soon as I arrived, it started to drizzle. I kept exploring, but after 10 minutes or so, the rain became heavy and I had to shelter. It kept pouring, and I did not get to see much more.

Back to Agartala

When I got back to Agartala, the town was a mess, with water everywhere. I am used to this from Dhaka, so I was not surprised, but I did not know what to do with my evening. Then I saw a poster for a Bengali film.

I did not want to lock myself in my hotel room, and walking around in the water was not an option, so I went to the cinema. DS Balaka cinema hall was in the city centre; I entered through a shopping market. It was a decent theatre, and I did not regret it. Drishtikone was a good film.

Back to Akhaura from Agartala

I went back the same way: a three-wheeler from Agartala to the border, across on foot, another three-wheeler to Akhaura station. I had not booked a ticket back to Dhaka, so I queued and bought one for the next train. It was a “standing ticket”: no seat, but you are allowed on board to travel standing up.

Back to Dhaka from Akhaura

When I saw the train, I got scared. It was packed, and I barely squeezed in. The journey was very unpleasant. I stood in the aisle with hundreds of people around me, and at every station, the passengers getting off had to squeeze past me to reach the door. It went on for what felt like forever before we reached Dhaka.

As I crossed the station, I took this photo of a train from above to give you an idea of what it was like inside.

My Verdict on Agartala

It was one of the shortest and cheapest foreign trips of my life.

How was it?

It was interesting.

I got to see the capital of an Indian state that, when I visited, was less developed than much of India. I bought a local SIM, but the mobile data hardly worked.

An hour of rain brought the city almost to a halt.

Tripura is far from the rest of India by land: the road and railway have to go all the way round through Assam.

There is not much to do after sunset. The town goes very quiet at night, and there is no real nightlife.

But I liked the simplicity of the people, and I loved the calm countryside only half an hour from the city.

Will I visit there again?

Maybe I would not go back just for Agartala. But it could be a good gateway to the other north-eastern states. Some of them, like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, have fantastic landscapes and fascinating festivals, and visiting them is a dream of mine.

So I will not be surprised if I end up in Agartala again!

Practical Tips for Visiting Agartala from Bangladesh

• Visa: Bangladeshi citizens need an Indian visa. India stopped issuing tourist visas to Bangladeshis after August 2024 and resumed them on 28 June 2026, and tourist travel through Akhaura restarted in July 2026. Apply at an Indian Visa Application Centre and check the latest rules before you plan.
• Travel tax: Bangladesh charges a travel tax when you leave by land (Tk 1,000 per adult when it was last raised in 2023). You can pay it online or at the port.
• Money: carry some Indian rupees, or change taka at the border. Cards are not accepted everywhere.
• Getting around: shared three-wheelers and autos are cheap. For Sepahijala and Khumulwng, hire a taxi for the day and agree the price first.
• Buses: the Agartala to Kolkata bus via Dhaka resumed in February 2026, but the direct Dhaka to Agartala bus had not restarted at the time of writing.
• By air: Agartala’s Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport is about 12 km from the city, with direct flights from Kolkata, Guwahati and Delhi.

Planning more of India? See my guide to the best places to visit in Kolkata, the easiest gateway to Agartala by air.

Agartala FAQs

Tripura Tourism Map

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