Buxa
Buxa is a village in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal within Buxa Tiger Reserve. Buxa is one of the oldest settlements in North Bengal. It is 14kms from Alipurduar and 180 km from Siliguri well connected by both motorable road and railways. The name has been derived from Buxa Fort-a fort at an altitude of 867 meters on the Sinchula Range guarding the most important of the eleven routs into Bhutan. Buxa is rich with bio-diversity and has a great collection of rare orchids and medicinal plants. Because of inaccessible terrain some parts of Buxa hills in the Sinchula range are still unexplored. The veritable flora and fauna of these wet forests attracts and nature lovers. Buxa National Park is the largest forest in Dooars.
More than 400 species of trees, 250 species of shrubs, 400 species of herbs, 9 species of cane, 10 species of bamboo, 150 species of orchids, 100 species of grass and 130 species of aquatic flora have been identified in Buxa. There are more than 160 species of other monocotyledons and ferns. The main trees are Sal, champa, gamar, simul and chikrasi. The main species in Buxa are Asian elephant, tiger, gaur, wild boar and sambar. There are more than 284 species of birds, 73 species of mammals, 76 species of snakes and 5 species of amphibians have been identified so far. In a recent survey it was found than Buxa Tiger Reserve has the highest number of fish species in the North Bengal region. Tigers, elephant, bears, civets, giant squirrel, gaur, chital, clouded leopard wild buffalo antelope and snakes including the regal python are found here.
Buxa is one hour fifteen minutes trek through picturesque surroundings from santhalbari, the starting point. The Historical Buxa Fort was coming under the British India after the 2nd Dooars War between the Bhutan and the British subsidiary alliance of Princely state Cooch Behar. There is a 4km further to Rovers Point or Romitey Dara (the land of beautiful birds at 4,500ft or 1,400m). The migratory beautiful black stork is a visitor of a visitor of the area. A picturesque spot along the meandering Jayanti River forming a nature border with beautiful Bhutan hills, Jayanti is a place to stretch your weary legs as the cool breeze brushes away all the exhaustions. Buxaduar ti Jayanti is another popular treck in the region