To Kolkata on the Maitree Express

We had a whirlwind trip back to Dhaka. Two things happened to cause this:
1) We missed the train
2) We boarded the bus with no money left
How we got into this situation was a series of bad luck and possibly bad decisions.

We arrived in Chittagong on a Friday evening, expecting to buy train tickets to Dhaka on the night train leaving the same day. There were no tickets left in any class, on any train to Dhaka until Sunday. We didn't want to wait until Sunday, we didn't want to take a night bus, so we spent a night in Chittagong with the intention of leaving early the next morning on an express bus to Dhaka.

That evening we forgot to go to an ATM to withdraw money, by the time we realised it, the banks were closed. Luckily we knew of an ATM in the train station, we would head there the next morning and find it to be out of order.

We had just enough money to buy bus tickets to Dhaka and have a few hundred Takas left. Then we got a little bit risky: we decided to make a stop half way to Dhaka to visit Buddhist ruins. We would need enough money to hire a taxi to and from the ruins and get back on a bus to Dhaka. We quickly did the math and it seemed like we would make it, just. Everything was going according to plan, we got off in Mainimati and hired a taxi to the site of the ruins. When we arrived we were made aware of the item we had left out of our calculations: admission cost. The cost of two tickets to see the ruins was more than what we had left in our pockets. In fact we were now doubting whether we could even afford the taxi back to the main highway.

Now, standing outside the gate to the ruins, we decided to meticulously break down the cost of getting back to Dhaka. Things weren't looking good, getting in to see the ruins was definitely a no-go. We made an attempt to have our secret stash of American money exchanged, but the rate we were offered was so ridiculous that we passed. In retrospect we probably should have just exchanged the money, but the ticket seller was being kind of an ass, so we didn't want to give him any money.

We concluded that we couldn't afford a taxi back to the highway, so we would have to walk. The rickshaw from the highway had taken quite a while, but our driver had gotten lost, so we thought it wouldn't be too bad. And our map showed the highway as being quite close, so we set off. After at least 30 minutes of walking we didn't seem to be anywhere near the highway, it appeared that the scale on our map was way way off. After more walking we flagged down a rickshaw and got him to drive us as far as 10 takas would take us. This left us with only another 20 minutes or so to the highway. From the side of the highway two business men helped us flag down a bus to Dhaka which somewhat stopped for us. We hopped onto it as it was still moving. Being a "local" bus, and not a fancy direct bus to Dhaka, we didn't have to pay much for the ride to Dhaka, we just had to stop every few minutes to pick up and drop people off. We ended up in Dhaka with about 300 takas, enough for 2 admission tickets to the Buddhist ruins.

In Dhaka, we booked tickets on the Maitree Express to Kolkata, the only Bangladesh-India train, reopened in 2008 after being out of service since partition. Even though it was slower than the bus, we wanted to take it. We had actually timed our departure from Bangladesh to make sure it fell on one of the 3 days a week on which the train ran. After a confusing discussion with the ticket salesmen we settled with "snigdha" class tickets:

"What do you mean what is snigdha class?
"Well, sir, would you be able to explain to us the difference between Seat Class, Snigdha Class and Chair Class?"
"Snigdha is Relax Class."
"Oooooh I see, Relax Class, we'll take two of those!"


The name Maitree Express is a bit of a misnomer. A more suitable name might be "the slowest possible way of getting to Kolkata from Dhaka other than walking". The train was almost empty, there were probably less than 50 passengers. But the train had the capacity for over 200, which meant that the break scheduled at the border had to be long enough to accommodate that many passport checks. The entire train was processed in less than 30 minutes, but we then had to wait about 2 hours in a stuffy waiting room in 40 degree weather. Which I suppose is better than waiting in a customs line for 2 hours in 40 degree weather. I don't think the train actually ever went much fast than 30km/h or so, but we had big reclining seats and air-conditioning (snigdha class = relax class), so other than the border crossing we were comfortable. We had reported at the train station in Dhaka at 8am and we didn't arrive in Kolkata until almost 10pm. The train station where we arrived did not even figure on any map of Kolkata, we exited the station to a dark empty parking lot. We had no idea how far we were from the city nor was there anyone in sight to help us. We eventually spotted a taxi that got us to our trusty hotel on Sudder St for a very reasonable price. We settled into our filthy, 200 rupee accommodation ready to tackle India for the second time.

Chitmorong Pilgrimmage

Chitmorong was the Buddhist hamlet where I had wanted to attempt to find a bed when our bus had stranded us on the side of a river. Before Yann and I had agreed on it, we were picked up by a bus and swept away to Rangamati (as had been the plan before being abandoned by the bus driver). Now we wanted to attempt to visit the village before returning leaving the area and heading back to Dhaka.

We had abandoned the idea of getting there by boat, but we knew we could catch a bus heading to main city of Chittagong and get off along the highway from where we would be able to get to Chitmorong. So this is what we decided to do. We would never have known to get off had we not been in the company of a Bangladeshi Navy officer who spoke some English AND had visited a Canadian ship in Hong Kong. We added his address and cell phone number to our ever growing list, if we ever got into trouble we now had at least half a dozen people to bail us out.

From the side of the highway, we found the stair case leading to a small dock where we paid a few takas to be rowed across the river. Once in the small village we quickly identified the beautiful wooden temple and stood around its outer courtyard with our huge packs, dripping in sweat, not really knowing what to do next. A few teenage monks passed us and giggled, saying hello once they were at a safe distance from us then bursting into further laughter. We still had a long day of travel ahead of us so we felt tempted to just poke around and head back to the bus stop across the river. The village was so quiet, beautiful and tiny, but somehow we were disoriented. Maybe it was the contrast with most of the rest of Bangladesh that threw us off. Before giving up returning to the river a young monk finally approached us and offered to show us around. He turned out to be a visitor himself, as were many of the people we subsequently met at the larger temple. As Chitmorong is home to one of the largest temples in the area, monks and Buddhist pilgrims from surrounding areas and smaller monasteries come to worship and meet the senior monks. Visiting women were beautifully dressed and made-up, and all had their own baskets in which to carry offerings to the temple and monks. We were led to the large new "modern" temple a little bit further into the village. Although not an architectural gem, it benefited from thick concrete walls to keep the heat out, and it seemed that most of the village made us of the main hall in the hot afternoons. Yann and I were terribly embarrassed when we were ushered past all the actual pilgrims to the front of the hall to meet the head monk. As locals offered up relatively large sums of money and other offerings, we were offered cakes, fresh fruit and soda (other people's previous offerings perhaps?). We sat and ate under the nose of the entire village and the old monk looking down on us carefully perched on his seat. We were anxious to leave, but we didn't know how long we should kneel. We watched other pilgrims around us placed money at the monks feet during their bow, and tried to emulate them. We tried to look pious and serious but neither of us knew what we were doing "you do it", "no you do it", "Is this enough?"... Of course, no one around us seemed to be as bothered by our presence there as we were.

After a few minutes we exited the temple with our young guide and joined the small crowd of villagers and pilgrims gathered outside in the shade. We were introduced to his family, a large group of men and women, who we understood later to simply be other inhabitants of his small village, making the size of the group slightly less impressive. After a few family photos, our guide, along with his fellow villagers rushed back down to the river to catch their boats home. We were left in a small riverside tea stall where we sat for a drink and to plan our return back to the big city.

Next to us was a young man who had been next to us at the temple, kneeling silently while we ate offerings. Judging by his facial features, he was Bengali, so his presence at a Buddhist temple was a little bit of a curiosity to us (less than 1% of Bengalis are Buddhist or Christian). I can't recall who initiated conversation, but we ended up sitting together, sharing tea and discussing onward travel. Suman spoke English quite well and when we left insisted on paying for our tea. Suman explained that he was from a village near Chittagong, where there was no Buddhist Temple where he could worship. We didn't push too hard, it appeared as though his family might be the only Buddhists in his village.

Suman stood out from people that we had met on our travels, he spoke with such honesty and frankness. It is difficult to explain why he marked us so much. Among thousands of meetings with locals from dozens of different countries, it often seems difficult to get passed the typical curiosities that we have for each other. Suman seemed to know exactly where we were coming from, and was more interested in our reflections on life than the weather in Canada or whether we approved of sex before marriage.

On Suman's suggestion, the three of us hired a boat all the way to Kaptai, which was only a few kilometers down river. The sun was excruciating out on the river but could only slightly detract from the surrounding scenery. Along the banks of the river we passed groups of bathers, clothes washers and even a few brave fishermen anchored in the few shady spots along the water. Within half an hour we were wandering the streets of Kaptai, heading to the bus stand. Within sight of the buses we were intercepted by an English speaking gentlemen who introduced himself as a government official, a self-proclaimed mayor of sorts. He was adamant that we take a tour of beautiful Kaptai before even considering stepping on a bus to Chittagong! We had a train to catch, and Suman clearly wanted to get home (to make matters worse was now carrying my heavy backpack), but it was impossible to turn down such enthusiasm. After all, Kaptai was the home of Bangladesh's only hydro electric project.

The contrast between Chitmorong and Kaptai was striking. The rows of shacks that led from the docking area to the main street were squalid, and the main street was not much better. The town was a seedy military base and there really was nothing for us to see. We were prevented from taking photos of the only somewhat decent view due to the presence of the Kaptai Dam in the photo. We did at least attract the attention of a sweet journalist who popped out of his office to be photographed with us and to exchange e-mail addresses as we passed by (the photos were in our inbox by the time we next had access to internet). Our guide was however becoming increasingly annoying, asking us for gifts, and parading us around town like trophies while Suman exhaustedly lugged my bag around (his pride was no match for the heat though, and he eventually let me take my bag back).

We had now drawn enough attention to ourselves to be summoned into the nearby military office, where luckily, the bored soldiers simply wanted to get in on the excitement. Our small tour of Kaptai had now been dragged out much longer than we had wanted, and we finally managed to say escape from with "the mayor", the journalist and the soldiers. Suman got us onto a direct bus to Chittagong and waved goodbye, once again we were parting ways with a stranger who had gone out of his way to help us, this time it felt like we were leaving an old friend.

Note: After a little bit of research back home, we discovered that Suman is a member of the Barua Buddhist community. For a short article on the Barua you can click here .

Friendly Rangamati

After a harrowing bus ride to get to Rangamati, we were exhausted and checked in to the first hotel that we visited. For dinner, we spotted an outdoor restaurant directly across the street where, after sampling the deep fried paratha bread stuffed with egg, we ate every night. After a few meals, the kitchen staff knew us (I admit we were somewhat recognizable) and would send over the "English speaking" waiter to serve us. Our hotel was slightly more upscale than what we are used to, we met many Bangladeshi families vacationing ... we posed in a few family photos. I enjoyed the hotel even more once I convinced Yann to move into an air-conditioned room. We spent quite a few hours hiding from the mid-day heat watching Al-Jazeera coverage of the Iranian elections.

Rangamati is actually a series of islands on Kaptai Lake, an artificial lake cause by the Construction of Bangladesh's only hydro-electric project. Some of the main islands are connected by causeways, and others are only reached by boat. We were a causeway away from the centre of town. Getting around was actually fun, once we understood the system. Since the town is actually quite sprawling, it was difficult to walk anywhere, but there were motorized rickshaws abound. The rickshaws operate almost like public buses. They ply the two main roads and pick up and drop off customers. You simply pay a few takas and climb on to the rickshaw with other passengers. It was amazingly efficient, and great for keeping the fare low, as the other passengers intervened if they thought the driver was charging us too much. We ended up going back and forth between the two main docks for almost an entire morning, trying to get someone to let us on a boat. We wanted to take a boat back towards Kaptai, returning to visit some of the villages that we had passed on our bus ride from Bandarban. We first went to the main docking area at the very northern tip of Rangamati's main island. Various boats were docked on the sandy shoreline, with passengers loading onto the boats via thin wooden planks leaning up against the boats. The area was bustling and the boats were completely packed, but apparently none were going in our direction. We worried that no one could understand our Bengali. Many people had told us that this was the place to catch a boat to Kaptai, so we were weary of anyone trying to tell us otherwise. That our guidebook's list of scheduled departures from this boat terminal would be accurate now seemed to be more than a little bit optimistic. There was no ticket booth, no signs, certainly no staff member, simply a few shacks along the beach and a few unmarked boats. It seemed that the local system was to hope that your boat would eventually arrive. Of course there was probably more order than was apparent to us, but without a local guide to help us, getting on the correct boat was close to impossible. At one point we gave up trying to find a boat to Kaptai and decided to get onto any boat that would take us anywhere. No one would let us on. We had been warned that this might happen, as theoretically our permits were not valid for any travel that strayed too much from the main towns. The boat drivers may have been weary of carrying foreigners to "restricted" areas. Whatever the reason, we spent most of our afternoon inquiring about boat rides for the next day. Everyone tried their best to help us, but not a single person gave us the same instructions. The only person who seemed to maybe have an idea was a young man who spoke a bit of English, he instructed us to go to the other docks across town the next morning, a boat would be leaving for Kaptai the next morning.

Searching for a boat took up most of our morning and early afternoon, so for the rest of the day we explored the dried fish market, near the main docks. We were followed by a steady stream of curious locals who wanted to have their photo taken and see themselves in the camera viewfinder. Adults and children were equally giddy at our presence and would usually burst into laughter when we smiled at them. On our second morning in Rangamati, we headed to the docks where the boat to Kaptai was apparently leaving from. Everyone we asked told us that we were in the wrong place and that we had to go to the main boat area (where we had been the day before). As we went from boat to boat being turned down, the young man who had given us the departure information appeared and we quickly questioned him: "where is the boat to Kaptai?". "Oh.... friends, no boat to Kaptai. I give you private boat tour around Rangamati?". What? We had been duped? It had been too long since we had seen other tourists and it seemed we had let our guard down. Luckily, we had pretty much given up hope on getting onto a boat, so we were only mildly pissed off, even though our friend had arranged so that we would miss the actual boat that we wanted to catch.

It turned out to be market day in Rangamati and boat loads of people and products were arriving as we stood around explaining to the sneaky boat driver that we would not be taking a private boat tour. Instead we followed the stream of women in their colourful sarongs into the packed market streets where hundreds of people had already set down their blankets and neatly displayed their fresh produce. The beautiful Chakma women who manned the stalls seemed to smile more than most people we had encountered (maybe this is the reason we remember them as being particularly beautiful). We spent a lovely morning photographing them as they smoked, laughed and sold their fruits and vegetables. In the afternoon we headed to the largest Buddhist temple complex in the city, Bana Vihara. We ended up there two hours before visiting time was to begin, and we felt that if we returned to our air-conditioned hotel room we might never returned, so we decided to wait it out. We spent at least an hour at a small local tea shop outside the temple gates. The minute we sat down, other shop owners came to see their neighbor's bizarre guests. We ordered tea and we were promptly served along with a plate of soggy cookies. We sat most of the time with a sweet old man, who seemed to be a family member of the tea shop worker. He spoke to us most of the time, in a local language. He didn't seem too worried that we spoke a different one. Other family members entered the shop, one smoked a huge bamboo pipe, the others just hung around and had tea. Before returning to the temple we handed out postcards of Montreal which proved to be a huge hit. Little did we know that the Olympic Stadium postcard would be the most coveted. It seemed that locals knew the word "stadium" from cricket, so they cared much more about our stadium then say, the postcards depicting 4 feet of snow.We made note to only hand out the same postcard the next time around so as to not cause the jealousy that was brought on by the stadium postcard. To finish off the day, we watched the sun set over the temple, accompanied by a sweet local student who had seen us entering the temple rather confusedly. He gave us a tour of the complex, explaining each building and even bringing us to the "question period" where locals come to ask the elder monks for answers to their queries. The temple grounds were quiet and peaceful and were just beginning to fill up as we left. After a full day, we finally headed back to our hotel where we crossed the street for our last meal of fried paratha, just one of many pleasures of Rangamati that we would be sad to leave behind.

Yann Gets Us to Rangamati

Yann and I argued about how to get to Rangamati. I am usually the one who carries and actually reads the guidebooks when we travel, so I was surprised when Yann expressed confidently that there was a direct bus to Rangamati from Banderban. There was definitely no such bus listed in the guidebook (although Yann was absolutely convinced). The officer in Chittagong who had issued our permits had told us that there was a bus, but I didn't think he knew what he was talking about either. My suggestion was to back track along the main highway to Chittagong, then take another main highway to Rangamati, rather than take the more direct route through the back roads of the Hill Tracts, this, I guessed, would take us 6 to 7 hours. But locals quoted us much faster times along the more direct route, and Yann was already convinced that it was the best choice for us, based on the mysterious advice that "he had read somewhere".

The local buses leave from a different bus station than the one we had arrived at. Judging by its appearance, we should have been able to predict what kind of ride we would be having. Many of the "buses" were beat up vans whose seats had been ripped out and replaced with wooden benches so as to squeeze in more passengers. And the actual buses looked like they had been salvaged from scrap-yards. We had a two hour wait for departure, so we hauled up in a local restaurant with our bags trying to keep cool (as in temperature). The restaurant we picked was the one with a fan and an empty bench to sit on. There wasn't actually any food available, and there was quite a number of flies hovering around, but we could get semi-cold drinks. A teenage boy had followed us into the restaurant and was quick to strike up a conversation. His dream was to become a tour guide and he would practice on us. Upon hearing that we were taking a later bus, he changed his bus ticket so that he could leave with us. We insisted that it was not necessary but he felt that it was his responsibility to take care of us. At the time we were a little bit annoyed, and we took turns chatting with him, but we would later be very grateful for his presence. When the bus finally took off, it was quite packed, people on for shorter rides got the standing room only, and those like Yann and I traveling the whole length of the trip got seats. We were near the front, just behind the woman traveling with her young son and a baby goat. Our new friend Anik, could not be seated with us, and as is customary in Bangladesh, we the foreigners had been given a prime seat while poor Anik had been relegated to the back of the bus. The bus was in rough shape, but not in any worse shape than any of the other ones we had taken in the country. Anyways, we were so eager to start moving and get some a bit of air blowing in our faces that we couldn't be bothered worrying about the holes in the floor of the bus. Being a local bus or train in Asia means being painfully slow. A local bus will pick up anybody who hails it down, from anywhere along its route. Even if it is to drop the person off 500m ahead. Passengers are simply charged according to how far they travel and how well they can negotiate with the conductor. We could be wrong, but we figure that all the money that the driver and his conductor make from picking up passengers goes directly to their pockets. Only the money from ticket sales goes to the bus company, particularly ambitious driver-conductor pairs will stop for everything. Our bus was in high demand, as the second of only two buses to travel the route in the day, so we stopped a lot. The road however, didn't seem to be terribly bad, and I was beginning to doubt my objections at traveling by this route. And by the halfway mark of the trip we'd only had to empty the bus once to make sure we'd make it over a bridge. After four hours on the road, we ended up at a river crossing. The waters were still quite low and the river was calm, so we weren't too worried about making it across. It seemed like the bus had its own raft and the passengers would cross in smaller boats, in groups of 7 or 8 passengers. As we waited for the process to get organized we found Anik to figure out where we were and what was going on. It turned out we weren't exactly making great time and the raft that was supposed to be bringing the bus across the river was still parked on the other bank. At some point we noticed that the passengers that had remained in the bus were now exiting and crowded around the driver. Anik investigated and returned with the news that the bus driver no longer wanted to continue the trip. He was giving the customers half of their money back and was turning around. As soon as he gave us back our money, Anik had already led us to the river where the three of us got in a small boat that sped across to the other side. From there, we caught a taxi to drive us a few kilometers up the road to a bus station. When we arrived at the "bus station" (this is how Anik had sold it to us anyways, it was actually the fork in the road, one direction leading to the main highway, the other leading to Rangamati) we were told that there were no more buses for the day heading to Rangamati.

Under normal circumstances we would not have worried, we would probably have found a place to sleep, but we were traveling with a permit that only allowed us certain stops in the region. At this point we were between two of them. We eventually figured out that we were quite close to the town of Kaptai a military outpost where we really didn't want to end up. Anik, as well as many fellow passengers (most of whom had now caught up to us and were also at the bus stand) were going in the direction of Kaptai. Anik now was trying to convince us to travel with him and find a place to stay there, but we were very weary of spending the night in a military town. We worried that our permits would be scrutinized more closely and we absolutely wanted to make it to Rangamati.

We knew there was a tiny Buddhist hamlet nearby, with no accommodation, but we thought we might get a floor to sleep on there. I tried to convince Yann and Anik that this was our best option, but I was fighting a losing battle. Anik was determined to have us go his way (he was now probably regretting having changed his ticket, and he was eager to get home) and Yann was too worried that we would be lost with no place to sleep with nightfall approaching. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to ditch our "permit route" because we had been dumped by our bus driver and thus had a perfectly valid excuse for being stranded in the Hill Tracts. At some point a bus arrived heading to Kaptai, and Anik reluctantly got on after asking us permission to do so. We were now alone.

Now I was beginning to panic, and I was getting pretty angry at Yann. I wanted to go to the nearby village and beg for a place to sleep and I had decided that Yann was being too cautious. After all, he had put us on this route in the first place. We were beginning to argue a little bit more aggressively when barreling up the road appeared a bus. As it slowed down the conductor leaned out the door yelling "Rangamati Rangamati" and we picked up our bags and jumped on. I have never seen a bus as packed as this one. There seemed to be two bus loads of people crammed into one (which was most likely the case). There was luggage piled on the roof and people hanging out of the doors and windows. Again, we were given seats, Yann refused his, as an old man had been kicked out to make room for him.

Yann spent the next 2 hours or so, standing in the bus as we raced through the hills towards Rangamati, picking up more and more passengers, including a group of about 20 school girls walking home. We arrived in Rangamati 8 hours after having left Banderban. The friendly conductor dropped us off right in front of a hotel where we checked in immediately. We were immensely relieved. A foreign engineer that we had met in Banderban was sitting in the hotel lobby, I wondered what route he had taken to get here?!

Epilogue
I scoured the guidebook for a mention of the road, and there really wasn't anything talking about direct travel between the two cities. Finally I tracked down the source of Yann's information: he had read about it on wikitravel, (actually a great source of travel information). The website had the following description of the road "it is possible to get to Bandarban directly from Rangamati by way of Chandraghona, but the perilous route is not advisable at all. " Somehow, between the time Yann read this and the time we had to set out to Rangamati, the sentence had become transformed in Yann's mind as something along the lines of "the fastest way to Rangamati is through the backroads of the Chittagong Hill tracts via Chandraghona". Yann is yet to admit that my route may have been faster, but I will concede that it would not have been as much fun.

Market Day in Banderban

We decided to spend our third day in Banderban without a guide. Since we were going to the town itself and not into any of the villages we felt comfortable getting around. The manager of the Hillside Resort tried to encourage us to take a tour and wasn't too generous with information sharing, but Banderban isn't very big so we weren't worried.

We planned to hitch a ride downhill on the back of a truck but it was still quite early in the morning and one never crossed our path. About half way into town we spotted an older woman dressed in traditional village clothing accompanied by two young girls in jeans and t-shirts. We decided to follow them to town as we knew it was market day. Unfortunately, we scared the old woman who quickly accelerated to the point that we had trouble keeping up. The two girls hung back to try a few words of English on us, but then raced ahead to catch up with their elder. By the time we entered Banderban they were out of sight. So we followed the pedestrian traffic into the main part of town.

Banderban was bustling with market day activity. The first group of people we encountered were the banana and jackfruit sellers. Truck and boat loads of fruit had been brought in for the day, and vendors watched sat by their goods along the road. We watched as buyers attempted to set the world record for most fruit in a vehicle. As we wandered among the fruit vendors we were greeted in English by a fat little Bengali boy on a bicycle. We were taken aback by his English, although not perfect, he was the most understandable local we had heard in a while. We asked him where he had learned, I can't remember his exact response, but I do recall that we had concluded that he was the son of some rich businessman or politician who had just moved to the area. He led us through the busy streets of Banderban to the permanent market near the river and we thanked him heartily, he seemed pretty proud of himself as he biked off. We were actually looking for the "tribal market" (as referred to by locals) that sets up every Saturday, regrouping villagers from around the area. We never found it, but we spent the whole morning at the town's main market which itself was packed, probably more than other days of the week. The market is set up near the river to allow for large shipment of goods from nearby villages. Porters carry the goods on their backs up the steep flight of stairs that connects the back of the shops to the river banks. We headed down to the river passing a constant stream of sweaty, barefoot porters, who usually stopped to be photographed despite their back-breaking loads. Wandering through the market stalls we were greeted with the same curiosity and enthusiasm that we had encountered throughout Bangladesh. People greeting us, posing for photos, trying out their few English words on us. One vendor insisted that we pick a complimentary item from his stand. I'm not sure what we eventually picked, but with a choice of onion, potato or hot pepper I think we walked away with a hot pepper. There was quite a variety of produce on display, of course the in-season bananas, pineapples and jackfruit, but also bright green herbs, betel leaves, dried fish and seafood, hot peppers, eggplants, pumpkin... We couldn't figure out why the only thing we could ever get to eat was bread and lentils. After a while in the market we decided to catch a rickshaw ride to the Buddhist Temple at the other end of town. We had somewhat unconvincingly argued to ourselves that we had in fact seen the Tribal Market. And since it was not even noon and we were already hot, sweaty and exhausted, we didn't know if we could handle another crowded market. A barefoot rickshaw driver agreed to take us to the temple for a small fee. It tooks us many tries to explain where we wanted to go, we had forgotten the name of the village where the temple stood (that had been taught to us earlier in the morning). Eventually it seemed we struck the right combination of syllables and we were off. Leaving behind the crowd that had gathered around to try to help with communication.

Banderban would probably rank first in the list of least pleasant places to be a rickshaw driver. Only a small area in the center of town is actually flat, and this is where of most of the drivers operate. Balaghata, home of Bangladesh's largest Buddhist temple is actually 4km outside of Banderban on a hilly, pothole-filled road. On multiple occasions I insisted that Yann jump out of the rickshaw to help our struggling driver haul his rusty, one-geared bike up a steep hill (I of course, had to stay in the rickshaw in order to preserve the driver's pride). The minute we cleared a hill though, the driver was quick to signal Yann to get back in. We arrived at the "Suprem Bliss Full Filled Buddha" temple around lunch time and hiked up the long flight of stairs leading to the temple. complex. A young, chubby monk led us into a dark cool room and directed us to sit down. We joined a family of pilgrims. The monk could speak some English (I am somewhat abusing the use of the word 'some' here), and he explained that we couldn't visit the golden stupa until the visiting hours, which weren't for another few hours. Yann and I, feeling particularly awkward with the dialogue (or lack-there-of) were eager to escape for lunch and return later but our host insisted that we stay. He brought out a bottle of Pepsi and some snacks which we were grateful for but did not really want to accept (in the end we did, thus feeling obliged to put some money in the offering box). The family of pilgrims presented money and gifts to the monk and we sat and watched while drinking soda. Eventually we freed ourselves and spent an hour or so at a small canteen at the base of the temple, where we drank more soda and ate stale pastries for lunch.

When we returned to the temple, we found a group of American university students waiting for us to join their tour. They were on a summer exchange, working in Dhaka and had come to the Hill Tracts for a short weekend holiday. One of the girls with the group was of Bengali origin, so she was able to help translate some of our guide's painfully detailed descriptions of the temple. The monk loved taking photos and would make us pose in various positions, including hands together in prayer. The Muslim girls seemed particularly uncomfortable doing this, but Yann and I thought the whole thing was hilarious (although we have made sure to destroy any evidence of these photos ever being taken). Eventually, the American group's driver stormed into the temple yelling that he had been waiting too long and that they had to leave. The group left without saying goodbye and without leaving an offering to the temple, despite having a personal tour outside visiting hours. The monk seemed disappointed, so Yann and I had to remain perky and interested for the rest of the tour, despite the absence of our translator. Our guide was extremely sweet and took more photos of us on the scorching roof of the temple. The tour eventually ended with our monk handing us a business card including his bank account number where we could send money. He showed us design plans for the the intended finished product. For 50,000 Takas (about 800 CDN) we could pay for a whole stupa . We kept the business card just in case we ever had the urge to have our names engraved on a golden stupa next to those of generals of the Burmese military junta.

Exploring the Chittagong Hill Tracts

The hillside resort offers a series of tours of the area. We chose the least expensive tour, the one that involved no transportation costs. The tour was consisted of a walk to Haatibandha, a local village inhabited by the Tripura tribe. The walk was described as “a 2 hour walk that should not be undertaken by anyone who is not physically fit”. I wouldn't exactly qualify myself as “physically fit” but I figured the brochure wasn't pitched at backpackers. It took us 20 minutes to get to the village. Our guide was not particularly friendly, but he was local and he spoke many of the local languages. He seemed to be known by villagers. Actually we didn't mind that he didn't want to talk, as a day of small talk in broken English is usually what keeps us from signing up for tours in the first place. The village was dusty and seemed empty. Most of the adults were working in the fields as it was harvest time for many local fruits, pineapples in particular. The eyes of young mothers and their children peaked out from the windows of their bamboo-walled homes. It was too hot for them to be outside playing. A few children came out to get a better look at us, many of them wore crosses or photos of Jesus around their necks. Tripurans were converted to Christianity by missionaries some generations ago. We caught a glimpse of a local elder, wearing the full traditional costume consisting of hundreds of beaded necklace, bangles up to the elbows and heavy earrings stetching our the earlobes. Our guide asked her permission to be photographed which she refused, but another elder was happy to be photographed. She explained that she used to wear traditional costume, but that it was just too heavy in the heat, so she had given it up. To get back to the main road we took a different route, following the banks of the river. In a few weeks the river would probably swell closing off this route, but the rainy season was delayed. The banks of the river were inhabited by poor Bengali settlers, their homes looking significantly more dilapidated than those of Haatibaandha. Their homes seemed to be too close to the river and we wondered how they would manage when the rains came. At least the village was shaded, allowing for a little bit more noon-time activity. The children were out playing and fishing in the river and women washed their clothes. Not unlike in Dhaka and Chittagong, everybody here wanted to be photographed. We ended up back at the road, almost in town, so with the help of our guide we stopped a truck and climbed on to the back. It was loaded with sand which of course ended up in our clothes. Forget the expensive rickshaw, this was definitely the local form of transportation up the road. This ride was free, because our guide new the drivers. (I feel the need to explain this photo due to the extreme dorky expression on my face. Yes, I was very excited. Yes, the young boy behind me thought I was a weirdo. Also, I was holding the camera up so that it didn't get any sand in it, not in preparation for a shot.)

We agreed to continue for the afternoon with our guide so that we could see some villages further away. Being a member of the Bawm tribe, he wanted to show us a Bawm village which is where we headed first. The Bawm village of Faruk Para was right on the side of the road, next to the tourist hot spot Shilo Propat waterfall. A bus load of Bengali tourists were swimming and admiring the tiny waterfall while a few Bawm villagers had set up stands selling “local” blankets. A small store sold cold drinks and village women and children sold their mangoes and pineapples on the side of the road while chewing betel leaves. We ordered a few cold drinks from the store and sat outside next to an extremely old Baum man. We were completely taken aback when he spoke English to us, with a British accent. He expressed his happiness at having tourists visit that were not British: “before....all we had were British, now we even have Japanese!”. For some reason he was very excited about the Japanese, and he proceeded to mention them a few more times over the course of our brief conversation. Yann walked down to the water while I sat with the women fruit-sellers. They were extremely friendly and curious and we made great attempts to communicate with each other. They managed to ask me the key questions of whether or not I was married and whether or not I had children. An older woman gave me a demonstration of betel leaf rolling. Areca nuts are rolled in betel leaf and chewed, (causing teeth and gums to turn red) having the effect of a mild stimulant. When we left the village, the women gave us a mango for the road. By now our guide was beginning to warm up to us. Just a little. We spoke briefly about politics and he expressed his dismay at the current situation for many of the villagers. According to him, villagers could not sell their own produce in the markets across Bangladesh. By law, they could only sell wholesale to Bengalis who would then transport them across the country and sell them at huge profit. The villages were undeniably poor, almost none had access to electricity, running water, health care, transportation, schooling. Multiple NGOs were operating in the area, but a clear development plan involving locals was not evident. The only businesses operating in the area were Bengali, and land-grabbing seemed to be an ongoing problem (despite relocation of Bengalis officially stopping in 1984). Our guide was a young man who seemed to be sad and frustrated. We tried to express sympathy for his cause, but we understood his animosity towards foreigners.

He decided to bring us further up the road to a Mru village. We hitched another ride on the back of a truck, but he could only drop us part way. Soon after being dropped off we passed a father and daughter along the side of the road, hunched over harvesting pineapples with large machetes. The man yelled over at our guide to tell us to come over. He sat us down and sliced open two pineapples for us. They were warm and juicy, and the three of us hadn't eaten any lunch so they were gone rather quickly. They offered to cut us open another one, but we declined. We were covered in sticky pineapple juice and the man offered us the last half of his water bottle to rinse off our hands. Yann and our guide quickly blocked me as I reached for the water. I was extremely embarrassed, especially as I saw the pile of pineapples that hey had already cut, and I thought of how long they had been working in the sun. The village of Noou Para was barely visible from the road and without our guide we surely would have missed the small path leading to it. On our way down, we crossed the village chief who spoke briefly to our guide before heading back to the fields. By now I was completely exhausted, and even on the downhill walk to the village I fell behind. All I could think about was that I was going to have to walk up the same path. The village seemed deserted, but the children and elderly were just hidden in their homes to keep out of the suffocating heat. Our guide managed to get us invited into a village home, where an older couple was resting. Inside it was cool and dark and the bamboo floors were soft to sit on. We were offered some local liquor and the woman decorated me with locally-grown roses. The village women wear the roses as earrings, by shoving the stem through their stretched holes. It took her a while to get one in my ear, and it was pretty painful. (I didn't have to decline getting one through the other ear as it was never offered). Before leaving the woman gave me her beaded necklace, which I accepted. Then she asked for money for it, which we didn't mind. The walk back up to the road wasn't quite as painful as I had imagined. By now we had come to terms with the fact that we would be wet with sweat for the entirety of our time in Bangladesh. There was a small shaded structure along the road and we sat down to have a rest before finishing off the day's tour. Nothing had to be said between for us to agree that we would not be walking back to the resort, even though it would be downhill. The three of us sat in silence and waited for someone who could give us a ride back.

The Resorts of Banderban

We debated for a while whether or not we would visit the Chittagong Hill Tracts, with the Canadian Government listing it as a "Avoid All Travel" area with the instructions "there is an extreme risk to personal safety and Canadians should not travel at this time". Somehow the Chittagong Hill Tracts were firmly fixed on the itinerary the minute we knew we were heading to Bangladesh. The area is a narrow strip of land sandwiched between India and Burma, home to the only "highlands" of Bangladesh (and its main source of timber). At partition, 99% of the population of the area was made up of ethnic minority groups. Today, almost 50% of the population is Bengali. Many of the Hindu tribes people fled to neighbouring India at partition, but after Bangladesh's war of independence, the government began resettling Bengali people to the area (an often cited reason for this resettlement is the tribes people siding with Pakistan during the war of Independence). A political party representing the various ethnic minorities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts was formed in the early seventies and began a 25 year armed struggle with the government. In 1998 a peace-treaty was signed promising the return of all stolen land and guaranteeing rights of return to those who fled the country. Not surprisingly, there is continued dissatisfaction with the implementation of the peace accord. The native inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts continue to be marginalized while land is still taken from them. The area was finally granted the "right" to use cell phones 2 months prior to our arrival. Despite the safety warnings, the area is a popular domestic tourist destination, as it boasts the country's only "mountainous scenery". And in a country with one of the highest population densities in the world, its such a lovely contrast to enter the sparsely inhabited hill tracts, only a three hour bus ride from Chittagong, Bangladesh's second largest city.

We arrived in Banderban, one of the region's largest population centres, on a Friday morning. Our guidebook recommended tourist facility slightly outside the town as the best place to stay in the region. Had we had a map and an idea of where we were going we would have resisted paying the rickshaw-cartel the "fixed price" to get there, but we didn't have much bargaining power. Cycle-rickshaws ply a small strip of Banderban, but everything else is too hilly and for anything over a kilometre or so you are stuck in a CNG (motorised rickshaw). Our motorised rickshaw chugged us up to the Hillside Resort. It was just close enough that Yann would definitely have suggested we walk had he known the distance, but just far enough and uphill enough that it would have been painful, so I was not-so-secretly grateful for our lack of map.

By the time we arrived at the Hillside Resort, we were already pouring sweat from our short walk up to the front desk. It was still fairly early in the morning but we could feel the intensity of the heat and humidity of the surrounding jungle. We had not seen any backpackers in Bangladesh except for a couple in Dhaka, so we were pretty surprised when we were told that there was not a single bed left in the complex (including one of their 36 dorm beds). We offered to sleep outside, or on the roof, but apparently even their tents and roof spots were taken by employees. The two managers were extremely apologetic, offered us a place for the next day and served us a huge plate of freshly cut pineapples. We ate them the huge airy dining hall overlooking the hills and jungle below, wondering what we would do.

We had seen a guest house on the road on our way up to the hillside resort and we asked about it. We were told that it was probably outside our price range, but we decided it was worth a try since it was on the way to town. It took us only a few minutes to get there, we were already sweaty and tired and we were walking downhill. (On the way, we crossed the huge tour group from Chittagong arriving to the hillside resort to take up all their beds). The place didn't look to be particularly booming but the gates were open so we walked in. We were greeted by a skinny Bengali teenager who directed us to a nice shaded gazebo. He couldn't speak much English, but he understood that we wanted a place to sleep. He quoted us the same as the other resort, but we would have our own private cabin with balcony overlooking the river below. We were feeling incredibly smart.

The skinny boy led us to the main building on the property where we met the owner, one of the first fat people we had seen in Bangladesh. He spoke English and he had children living in Canada. He was in the process of being interviewed by what seemed to be local media. He insisted we sit down and watch the interview in what turned out to be his "cottage". He was loud and confident and he called on a few more servants to serve us drinks and snacks. We felt pretty uncomfortable, and were really just trying to figure out if it was possible for us to stay the night and how much it would cost us. The owner just kept telling us to "take the cabin of our choice". Some of the cabins were still being built, and they were quite luxurious from the outside. Only two of them had working fans though, so we picked the one of the two in the shade.

Our large host insisted that we drop our bags at the cabin and come back to socialize with him at the main lodge. Yann and I always have trouble saying no in these types of situations and we ended up back at the lodge listening to our hosts monologues. Among the various things he talked about, the highlights were probably his $15 000 membership to the Chittagong Golf Club, his love of local alcohol that he could purchase from the tribes people who he "allowed on his land", the fact that the daughter of the tribal family living on his land was a prostitute, that he thought he should feed his baby deer alcohol to get it addicted and subsequently dependent on him, his decision that the resort would not be for "uncivilized locals" but for respectable guests like us. We were introduced to his collection of exotic pets that he had manage to capture from the jungle: the baby deer, a tiny monkey chained to a post in the sun and a civet cat. To top off the awful exposé we got to meet his mistress, who was hiding in the bedroom and didn't want to be seen. He forced us to enter the room and look at her as she screamed and covered her face. According to him she was actually a well-known t.v. personality. Over the course of our discussions we would often be left alone for long periods of time when our host would disappear to his bedroom or elsewhere. When we would try to leave the servants would insist that we stay seated in the dark living room. At the first opportunity we escaped the lodge and walked back up the hill to make sure that they had reserved us a bed at the other place. We felt sorry leaving all the servants to their empty resort. We figured they were being treated only slightly better than the tribes people living on "their owners land". In the afternoon we walked along the hillside and sat admiring the jungle and river below. We saw how far the Chittagong business man's property stretched out. Land that was undoubtedly procured via corrupt government officials and locals. He talked about installing an in ground pool at his resort, while the surrounding villages did not have electricity or running water. We couldn't wait to get away from this place. Eating dinner was as uncomfortable as our earlier socializing. We wanted to eat in our cabin, but we were ushered to the dining room to eat with the owner. The owner's girlfriend didn't want to eat with us. We were served a dinner consisting of rice and lentils, while the owner had his own meal prepared. The dinner came 4 hours after we had requested it. Before dinner we were served local alcohol, which had been diluted with warm milk. Neither of us were interested, but our dinner wouldn't be served unless we finished our drinks. In the brief moments we were alone, I managed to toss most of it down the sink (by now my dislike for our host had turned into paranoia and I was pretty convinced that this was a poisoning attempt). We made plans to get up early and did not want anyone to wake up to prepare us breakfast. After much insistence we settled on an order or toast.

In terms of comfort, our night was one of the worst ones spent yet in Bangladesh. By dusk the huge jungle bugs had come out and invaded our cabin. The cabin hadn't been used in a long time, judging from the vast amount of spider webs and bug carcasses. We found a mosquito net covered in pieces of dead bug and quickly got it up to protect our bed from any intruders. The net was so thick that the minute amount of air being produced by the ceiling fan could not reach us. The power was off for many hours any ways which made us appreciate whatever amount of coolness that the fan could provide us. We were soaked in sweat but too terrified to face the prospect of the army of bugs accumulated outside our mosquito net being free to land on us. In fact we both slept holding the net underneath our bodies to make sure that nothing could get in. Any time one of us moved the other would make sure that the net hadn't been disturbed. I few times in the night I braved leaving the safety of the mosquito nets to have a shower. It was the only way to cool myself down, although the effects only lasted a few minutes. Yann has a better tolerance for heat, and is also a lot more afraid of bugs, so he just sweated it out.

Our bags were packed and ready by 7am. None of the staff were awake to make us breakfast, which was a relief. But the owner's car was gone and we couldn't find anyone to pay. After enough shouting, one of the teenage staff appeared to figure out what was going on. Once our departure was figured out, all of the young staff members appeared, including some that we hadn't even met yet. It took the whole group of them to figure out how they were going to charge us 3 times the price they had originally quoted for our stay. While we waited they managed to scribble down an itemized bill, with various incidental fees and a higher room rate because we had a "choice cottage". We figured that since their boss was gone, they were trying to get something for themselves, which didn't bother us. We laughed at them, questioned a few of their charges, then paid the original room rate and about 3 times the going tourist rate for the lentil dinner. They seemed slightly disappointed.

We were so happy to not have to see or talk to the owner again, we left as fast as we could, and raced up the hill to the other resort. We were there long before our room would be ready, so we sat in the dining hall and admired the jungle scenery that lay before us. Free of in ground pools, for now.