There are many places where I have been, not for the sake of travel for pleasure or adventure but because of I had to. Most of them are nothing so important that I think I have to write. But this time I have to wr
ite. This is not a pleasure trip according to meaning of "Pleasure trip" though I felt immanence pleasure during the trip.
Few of my travel friends visited a remote hilly area of Bandarban, Bangladesh and got back with gigabytes full of photographs and more stories to support them as a trip of life time and proving what a terrific mistake I have done by
missing that one. So as usual I was very upset and sharing my sadness with some colleagues. And surprisingly two of my colleagues became more exited than me and declared they had to go there! WoW, I thought 'why not?'
Then... the actual story starts :)
Our first problem was managing leave from office... We manged that some how. Oh, the other two very enthusiastic persons are Sharmin and Aftab. I should say something about these two colleagues. I knew them as very good team mate.But after this tour, I can say I know two very good human being who are v
ery friendly, helpful, honest, caring and so on... :).. Ok. After confirming our leave, We had to plan our tour and here I had to depend on some of those friends I have mentioned earlier who had already visited the place and was trying to terrify me with stories of difficulties to be faced. What ever I kept trying to filter out the actual information out of there flourished descriptions and manged to get some very useful info like, we have to carry our food from here as ther will be no regular supply of food in those hills. We have to carry sleeping bags and other necessary things for camping and also carry one of those friends to guide us from being lost(though it was not possible to get lost anyway, if some terrorist wouldn't take us...
and that is another story to be told...)
Total member of our travel team was 10. At the last
moment one withdrawn ed and at the very last moment one was added who knew almost nothing about the trip.
We planned for 4 days. 3 of them will be passed in those remote places out of cell phone network and out of this
life full of noise and crowed. This was not a route of regular tourists and there was no facilities of urban life. even no sanitary toilates :P.
How ever we started for Bandarban on 15th January 2010 @ 11 pm from Dhaka by Bus. Few of those experienced travelers, Rabby vai, foysal vai came to say us good bye and provide some more suggestion like how to wash yourself in the jungle and where to pee (If you don't believe some one can give such suggestion then meet them.. u will learn!). We dumped our big bagpacks in the Bus hull and kept the bucket like thing full with Eggs in front of me( we were carrying 90 eggs and loads of biscuits and many many noodles pack with us...)....It was really cold and I caught cold the very night and started to sound strange with my voice cracked(?? ).
We reached Bandarban in the morning, had our
breakfast. In the mean time Rahat vai and Aftab manged a Jeep which is locally called "Chander
Gari". That Jeep took us to Thanchi. jumping and revolving around the hills on the narro roads. It was a bit foggy in the morning but as the sunwas rising high, great scenes were evolving around us.. the shiny blue sky and hills with shades of green was all around. The local regular service of Chander gari full with people was crossing us with high speed and we thought of what could happen if they misses some inches on either side... Well, on such trips u don't think of danger for long. You cant. The thrill of the various situations take other regular thinkings away... You feel like being more close to yourself, get a bit wilder and somteimes a bit taken awya with newer thoughts as Sharmin. She got very quiet, just watching , looking into places far far away and thinking about things of far far away... Or you may laugh about anything near funny like Raju or mehedi or aftab. Or on very rare cases show no sign of change as Rahat vai. and me? I was busy taking shots giving output to raise my eyebrow and thinking when will I learn...
We reached Thanchi around 12 in the noon. Crossed shallow tiny river Shangu and went to the house of our Guide come Boat man Feroz about whom I can write another story and can guaranty that story will not bore
you like this one. any way, I think Mehedi (A Great Cartoonist... I knew it after the tour...) can depict Feroz
better than me so I will let him do that. There we had our lunch and all of us was very happy with their warm welcome and arrangement which was very unexpected from a unknown person. Actually Feroz was so overwhelmed by the affection of our Previous team and felt so much for them that he welcomed us with such happiness and took so good care of us that by the end of the tour some of us was scared of this taking care and his helpfulness !!
Then We started for thanchi at 3 in the evening by boat. We were supposed to reach our next destination Tindu by evening
. This journey by boat was so exotic. slow motion move of the boat through crystal clear water of Sangu. Deep glossy green weeds under water and green zoom lands on the hills. Because of shallow water everyone had get down from boat hear and there and walk while the boat men struggled to take the boats through the stone base river and rocks... Oh! here me and Sharmin got special favor from Feroz ( benefit of being women ;)...) as he would not let his Apus to walk on water. :D.
We were progressing slow and soon it began to get dark. we reach a place called Poddo. There our two boats
were tagged with one bigger engine boat to go faster.
View on both side of this riverside was awesome. Green trees on the hills and greener bushes near water made it true Greenland. we got down from that engine boat and got back to our small boat. It got darker and various sized rocks started to appear here and there in the river. ..
Some places the river base was made of granite plates. As it got darker with time... the trees and bushes around seem to come closer and shades of dark green and black. It was a night without moon. Stars began to shine so brilliantly that it seemed they came closer to us!... It was very silent all around... we could here the sound of water splash so clearly... I remember this time very much... it was so different... an evening to remember for long long time....
The other boat fell behind us.. so we could not see them or hear them any more... felt like only 5 of us were there in that territory ! soon the boatmen could not see the stones underwater. Aftab took 2 torches and tried to work as Boat headlights! that helped a bit... the wind started to get colder and the river water was already colder than the atmosphere... So it was very difficult task for the boatmen to take oour boat ahed... they had to get into the chilly weter now and then to push the boat. It was very difficult at that time... Then we got down from boat as we had to walk the rest of the path upto Tindu para. Rahat vai guided us through... we manged to walk in the dark on moving rock highway! I don't know what we would have done without him! Here I want to Tha
nk him for everything he has done for us.. And thats a very long list I can say... :) Everybody manged to reach Tindu with loss of 1 sandal of Raju. in the mean time Mehedi tried to show us some stars and their names.. I saw some and sharmin saw everything blured without her specs... :D
Then it was time for dinner. We made fire to cook our food. The menu was egg and rice.
In this time Feroz went to find a place for us for that night. We spent that night at some tribal house. it was good experience too. We had to climb up to their semi up stares what we call 'macha' (See the photo). sleeping inside sleeping bag was bit problematic for some people. Well... here ends the first day of our Tour!!.... want to to hear more??.. next time :)
To be cont.....
BoroPathor should be a must visit place for any traveler in Bangladesh. This is such place that can not be described or captured on Photos... When I first saw some photos of this place, I was amazed. Seemed like some place from big epic Hollywood movie... Then more photos of that place came along... It was impossible to resist the temptation to go there right away...
