2 Best Shopping in Kolkata (Calcutta), India

Some of the country's most skilled goldsmiths and jewelry designers hail from Kolkata. And in Bowbazar, east of Chitpur Road, is where you will find them. The cheek-by-jowl shops that line the busy street sell good-quality traditional gold and silver jewelry, but there are also more trendy and chic designs in platinum, with diamonds and other precious and semiprecious stones. Prices are reasonable, because labor charges are less here than in other Indian cities. Each shop has an astrologer on hand to help you find the most auspicious stone based on your sign and birth date.

Head up Rabindra Sarani from Lal Bazaar Road (near the West Bengal Tourist Office) and you'll soon enter an Islamic world. Women walk by in burqas (long, black, tent-shaped robes), their eyes barely visible behind veils. Men sit on elevated platforms selling Bengali kurtas (shirts) and pants, and colorful lungis and white dhotis (both are wraps) for men. Other vendors sell vials of perfume created from flowers. Rabindra Sarani is interesting all the way to Chitpur Road.