I left Roorkee by the morning train on March 22, 2008. This was not the best day to travel as it was Holi a day given to much rambunctious behavior. The only incident was a bomb thrown at our carriage! A bomb made of fresh cow manure loaded in a plastic bag! A young lady sitting by the window was hit directly and her clothes messed up, really not very funny. I got to Delhi at mid day. It took some time to arrange a taxi to Tejvir’s home in Gurgaon. Tejvir is Naipal’s nephew and works as a pilot for Kingfisher Airlines. The travel agent had booked me with the competitor Jet Airways. I flew from New Delhi to Kolkata (Calcutta) with Jet Lite. From Kolkata to Chittagong I flew by GWG a Bangladeshi airline that flies Canadian Dash 8 aircraft. It was a relatively short hop across the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta. The complexity of the river channels – main channels and distributaries is amazing. We saw only a part of this on the way out but more was visible on the return journey. At the airport in Chittagong I was met by my host Debesh Chakraborty. I was the only tourist on the plane. Bangladesh is not a hot tourist destination. Debesh is the father of a good friend from St.John’s.
I stayed with the Debesh and wife Anjulika (Didi) as a member of their family and met friends and relations many of whom live close by. Their house is close to the bazaar district. On the second day there I was taken on a tour of Chittagong City and environs. Chittagong is the main sea port and second city of Bangladesh and famous for its ship breaking industry. Following a visit to a ship breaking yard, or more correctly an abandoned yard, we then visited the cantonment area characterized by low hills and several small lakes and popular picnic areas.
A highlight of my visit was a trip to Cox’s Bazaar a beach resort area some 150 km south of Chittagong. I stayed with in the Burmese market with the Mong family a friend of Debesh in an apartment above their store. A group (tribe) of Burmese people was settled in Cox’s Bazaar by the British following a colonial misadventure of a century ago. The people retain their language and Buddhist culture and the town and surrounding area contains several Buddhist temples. I traveled to Cox’s Bazaar and back on buses of the S.Alam Company. Over my three day visit to Cox’s Bazaar I saw the most famous temples, visited a safari park (zoo) and inspected the famous beach, reputed to be one of the longest in the world. It was impressive enough but I prefer the golden sand beaches of Sri Lanka to the brownish beach at Cox’s Bazaar.
While in Chittagong I would go out every day to explore the nearby bazaars and look for fruit or coconuts etc. I was disappointed to find out that much of the fruit was imported – apples from China, mangoes from India and papayas from Thailand! Local fruit was also available but the quality was poor, typically fruit were picked too green and quality further compromised by lack of care in handling and transportation. As elsewhere in South Asia different types of businesses tend to be grouped together. On Satish Badu Lane near the house was the drum bazaar, with two shops manufacturing drums (dolaks and tables) and a third shop renting drums and regalia for anyone needing to dress-up a wedding band. A couple of streets over was a bazaar specializing in selling clothes that were rejected for export (mainly missed orders) as the quality of the clothes were perfectly acceptable. I bought three shirts for about $ 7.00 which will keep me looking respectable for another year at least.
I would have liked to visit Karnafuli Hydropower Station and Reservoir, located in the Chittagong Hill Tract. It was recommended in my somewhat outdated tourist guide book but I discovered that a special permit is required and besides the area was considered somewhat dangerous. (Since my passport was with the Indian High Commission this venture was not feasible in any case.) The large lake created behind the dam (246 sq.km) is the main attraction. In countries where lakes are few - reservoirs are much appreciated! This is Bangladesh’s only hydro plant and supplies 25% of the country’s electricity. Bangladesh has a large resource of natural gas that is used for powering cars and scooter rickshaws and also thermal power plants.
I left Bangladesh on April 2 via air to Kolkata. I found a hotel on Sutter Street near the Maidan (Central Park) and spent the balance of the afternoon exploring. I visited the Indian Museum: Gallery on Economic Botany. The custodians would not allow me to take my bag and camera inside and unfortunately I also left my glasses with them. The exhibits hall was dark and the exhibits very old. It was interesting but badly in need of rejuvenation. From there I crossed the road into the Maidan. I enjoyed a horse show (a rehearsal probably) by the Kolkata mounted police. The music was from another age – Daisy-Daisy a favourite of my Mother’s and popular in the 1920’s!
The following morning I left Howrah Station on the Poorva Express to New Delhi. On the way to the station I caught glimpses of the famous Writer’s Building and some of the other old buildings and realized that there was a lot to see and do in Kolkata and that I really should have stayed there two or three days.
We left the station at 8:30 a.m. more or less on time. The route took us across West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. One could see the gradual evolution from wet tropical Bengal to the dry savannas of Bihar. In the afternoon we ran into an un-seasonal rain storm that slowed us down. We reached Uttar Pradesh at nightfall and should have traversed the whole state in the dark but we did get to see quite a bit of it the following morning as the train was running three hours behind schedule by then.
I traveled in a Three Tier Air Conditioned coach. It was similar in layout to the old (1960’s) trains with compartments for eight. The seat, luggage rack and back rest provide three berths. The back rest is hinged so at bed time it can be raised into a horizontal position and suspended by a couple of chains. Opposite there was a similar setup. Across the aisle there were two berths, the upper a luggage rack and the lower formed by lowering the high back rests. This layout favours socializing and I enjoyed the company of fellow passengers: a business man from Kashmir, a Sikh mechanic, a police officer and an old lady on pilgrimage. In the adjacent compartment were a couple of Bengali families on holiday.
Clean pillows bed sheets and blankets were provided and meals could be ordered – the usual choices veg and non-veg! Vendors patrolled the aisle selling snacks, tomato soup, newspapers, sweets and namkeen (salty snacks, nuts and chips and the like) as we traveled along.
I had traveled much of this route in 1964 and remembered the stations that I had visited then – Durgapur, Gaya and Varanasi Junction.
The late arrival in New Delhi meant that we arrived at a more convenient hour, 10:00 a.m. rather than 7:00 a.m. I had some time to kill in Delhi, as my connecting train was not until 3:25 p.m. So after freshening up at the YWCA I headed out to the National Museum. This modern museum is devoted to archaeology and history and has some rare collections, notably: artifacts from the Harappan civilization that must be 5000 years old. The museum policy is very customer friendly and one is permitted to take pictures - as many as one likes. There is also a good restaurant in the museum. So after having my full of sights, photos and food, I headed back to the YWCA to pick up my knapsack and from there went to catch my train back to Roorkee.
The cost of rail travel is amazingly low amounting to Rs. 1023/- ($ 25.00) for travel across India and Roorkee to New Delhi both ways, about 1850 km in total. Additionally as a senior citizen I got a 20% reduction! Then next day it was back to work.
Enjoy the photos.
