Sundarbans

The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest on earth and Bangladesh holds about sixty per cent of it, six thousand square kilometres of tidal channels where the Ganges delta meets the Bay of Bengal. UNESCO listed the Bangladeshi part in 1997. It is the only mangrove anywhere with a tiger population, and the tigers here swim between islands and are seen by almost nobody. What visitors do see is spotted deer, macaques, estuarine crocodiles and kingfishers from the deck of a launch. Trips run three or four days out of Khulna and Mongla. Cyclones come off the bay across this forest first, which is what shelters the coast behind it.