One to two days covers Samastipur well. Spend one day on Thaneshwar Sthan, the riverside lanes and the Pusa campus, then add Khudneshwar Asthan or Vidyapati Dham. With more time, Darbhanga is close by to the north, and Muzaffarpur lies a short ride to the west.

Because it began here. The Agricultural Research Institute opened at Pusa, near Samastipur, in 1905 with money from American donor Henry Phipps. After the 1934 Bihar earthquake damaged its buildings, it moved to New Delhi and took the Pusa name along. The old campus now hosts a central agricultural university.

Vidyapati Dham, about 38 km from Samastipur, is where the Maithili poet Vidyapati is said to have died. Legend says that, too weak to reach the Ganges, he declared the river would come to him, and it did. Its Shiva temple, Baleshwar Mahadev, draws large crowds of devotees in Sawan.