Things to Do in Khulna, Bangladesh

Quick facts: Spanning 37 hectares, it is home to over 400 species of plants, including rare tropical species. The park is a favorite spot for daily walkers, and it also features a lake with pedal boats that attracts families on weekends.

Highlights: Hidden within the park is a small botanical corner with a collection of rare palms, where you can see species over 50 years old. Particularly interesting is the avenue of giant banyan trees, whose aerial roots create natural tunnels for you to walk through.

Quick facts: Over 10,000 items are kept here that depict the rich cultural heritage of southwestern Bangladesh. The collection includes everything from ancient Hindu sculptures to objects from the British colonial era.

Highlights: Among the exhibits is a rare collection of 18 silver coins from the Mughal Empire, minted in a local mint that operated for only 12 years. Also particularly interesting is a room dedicated to fishing in the Sundarbans region, where you can see traditional wooden boats over five meters in length.

Quick facts: Here, on April 17, 1971, the oath of the first interim government of Bangladesh was taken, and the location was a closely guarded secret until the day of the ceremony. Spanning 23 hectares, the complex preserves the memory of the nine-month war for independence that changed South Asia.

Highlights: Underground, there is a 300-meter-long system of tunnels through which leaders fled to India while bombers dropped bombs above them. The stairs leading to the underground bunker are still slippery from moisture, and visitors touch them with their hands, feeling the coldness of the concrete that kept the secret.

Quick facts: With 70 domes and about a dozen minarets, this mosque is unique in all of Bangladesh. It is made of terracotta and handmade bricks, and each dome has a different decorative motif.

Highlights: When you stand under the central dome and look up, you will see that none of the 70 domes are the same: each has its own geometric pattern drawn by hand. Local craftsmen embedded over 25 different Islamic motifs directly into the brick, without using a single drop of paint.

Quick facts: The complex is home to the former estate of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, with a dilapidated yet poetic atmosphere that you feel the moment you step into the courtyard. The wooden furniture and objects from the original household still stand exactly as they were left, built in the 1920s.

Highlights: In the courtyard grows a mango tree that Tagore personally planted in 1926, and its fruits still fall on the same ground where the poet walked. Every February, local children sing his songs right on the spot where he sat and wrote, and that sight leaves you breathless.

Quick facts: This memorial was erected in honor of the victims of the massacre that took place in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War. On the site of a former school, there is now a museum with photographs and personal belongings of the deceased.

Highlights: The walls inside the memorial are covered with handprints of the survivors and families of the victims, each unique and personal. At night, 71 lamps illuminate the path to the monument, symbolizing the year 1971 and creating an almost eerie atmosphere of silence and remembrance.

Quick facts: A former shipyard from the British colonial era, today it is one of the oldest active shipyards in the region. Spanning over 60 hectares, master craftsmen here build and repair over 20 ships per year, from small fishing vessels to large cargo ships.

Highlights: Imagine the clatter of hammers echoing through old steel hangars while metal shavings crunch under your feet. That is the soundtrack that has not changed since 1957. In secret workshop number 7, master craftsmen still use riveting techniques for ship plates that have died out in most world ports.

Quick facts: Tagore wrote part of his poetry here, which later brought him the Nobel Prize. The courtyard hides a well over 100 years old that has never dried up, not even in the greatest droughts.

Highlights: Imagine sitting under the old mango tree where Tagore played the harmonium and wrote verses that changed literature. His desk still stands in the same place today, and through the window you can see the exact same landscape that inspired him over a century ago.

Quick facts: Stretching 610 meters across the Bhairab River, it is one of the longest bridges built in Bangladesh during the Middle Ages. Its twenty-five brick and terracotta arches still inspire admiration today, and local fishermen still fish in the shade beneath the bridge as they did centuries ago.

Highlights: People rarely know that the bridge is not just a river crossing, but part of an ancient irrigation system that channeled water to hundreds of hectares of rice fields. When you stand in the middle and look down, you will see water flowing through stone blocks that were hand-carved more than five centuries ago.