The Petrapole/Benapole border is the only land border between India and Bangladesh that is open for foreigners to cross. It’s also the only Bangladeshi land border which issues visa-on-arrival. We made the crossing between Kolkata and Khulna without any major problems in the end, although it did take most of the day. Read on for our experience crossing the border! For those making the return journey, as long as you have a valid visa for India you can probably just reverse these steps.

Getting from Kolkata to the border

Several buses operate from Kolkata to the border and beyond, however we found the easiest way to get to the border was to take the local train from Sealdah station to Bangaon. These trains depart frequently, approximately every hour to 90 minutes. You can purchase tickets in cash from the local ticket counters at Sealdah station – tickets are extremely cheap. We took train 33825 which departed at 10:08am and took about 2 hours to reach Bangaon. I recommend getting an earlier train if possible as the border procedure took quite a while and we didn’t arrive in Khulna until after dark.

You can buy tickets for the train to Bangaon from the counters on the left

From Bangaon station there are plenty of shared tuktuks outside heading to Petrapole and the border. The drivers were jovial and we shared the ride with three locals, one of whom got out half way. Again, the cost for this was negligible and we arrived at the border around 12.40pm. There were plenty of money exchangers at the border on the Indian side. I recommend getting some taka here as ATMs which accept foreign cards can sometimes be difficult to find outside of major settlements in Bangladesh.

In the tuktuk from Bangaon to Petrapole

Crossing the border

This was the easy part.

We headed for the exit from India and were stamped out with no problems. As we were heading towards the Bangladeshi immigration building, a well-dressed guy who spoke perfect English approached us and asked us if we needed a visa on arrival – we said yes and he told a guard to take us to an office to wait for him. After being escorted to the office, we waited for a while before the well-dressed guy reappeared. This was, presumably, the main man in charge of the border post.

On the way to Bangladesh

Many nations are eligible for visa on arrival to Bangladesh, which can be issued at the Petrapole/Benapole border. The cost when we crossed was $51 USD per person, payable in foreign currency. We were carrying US dollars and had exact change so had no problem paying this. The other requirements for the visa on arrival were an itinerary and details of a hotel booking. This doesn’t need to be via an official tour company or anything like that – Dan just showed a list of the places we intended to visit in Bangladesh and the hotel that we had booked that night in Khulna, and that was fine.

We weren’t grilled and the whole experience was very pleasant, the border guy was friendly and professional and gave us a 30-day Bangladesh visa. The process at immigration took about two hours in total as there were several bureaucratic hoops that needed to be jumped through by the border staff, including depositing and verifying our foreign currency at a local bank – just standard procedure.

Getting to Khulna

Once through the border, there were plenty of people touting rides to Dhaka. As we were going to Khulna, we went to the office for Green Line Paribahan, which is one of the more established bus companies in Bangladesh. Their office is just beyond the border checkpoint and is pretty professional, with complimentary wifi.

We bought a ticket at the office but then had to wait around for quite a while to get a bus to Khulna. There are some shops on the road in Benapole selling crisps and snacks so we stocked up. Eventually, we were herded onto a tuktuk (which we had to pay for) along with another local passenger who was heading to Khulna and taken a few kilometres down the road to a waiting bus, which then hung around for a good while longer before setting off. Eventually we made it to Sonadonga bus terminal in Khulna after dark – luckily the terminal was only a short walk from our accommodation.

And that’s it! Welcome to Bangladesh! For more Bangladesh content, click here!