Covering Bangladesh by Motorbike - Part 1

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Try traveling around by a Motorbike in Bangladesh, you will get a different perspective towards the community. In the beginning it may bother you a bit with the smog and lack of proper traffic rules in the highways. The roads are not that good in all the places as well. But most of them are not that bad either. Once you get out of the city premise, the real flavor of Bangladesh opens up. The highways here are not like the highways of the more developed countries but we do have long stretches of beautiful roads with breathtaking country beauty all around. The hospitality and the curiosity of the people are still original.

I have covered a bit of the highways but there is still lot that remains. For starter I’ve been to the hilly areas in Chittagong and Bandarban (google it, awesome places), some places in North Bengal like Kushtia and Faridpur. I had a bike ride to Sylhet. I am planning a long trip touching the historical places in one go from Tetulia to Teknaf, that means the north to south stretch of Bangladesh. The trip is still in its planning stage but hopefully I will do that sooner rather than later.

My particular favorite one so far is the trip to Bandarban. It is my favorite place in Bangladesh anyway so I am a bit biased towards the roads here. The hills of Bangladesh are not that high, the tallest one is just a tad more than 1000 miter. But the locality and the people have not been yet corrupted by the touch of modern utilities. They still cultivate their crops in the age old fashion called “Joom Cultivation”. They still live in small villages of 15 to 50 huts and the usual distance from one village to another is about half a day’s walk. These places are not accessible by bikes as there are no roads there but one can ride up to a place called “Boga Lake” and start exploring by foot from there.

Anyhow, getting back to my Bike trips, Bandarban was a dream come true for me. I was planning a long time to go on this trip. Four bikes and four friends started in this dream trip and we took our first interval in Chittagong. We started towards Bandarban the next day and reached there by evening. Getting a hotel was not any trouble as there are lots of hotels with all the basics nicely covered. They are quite cheap, about 600tk a double bed room, approximately 5.5USD a night, and the food is quite cheap as well. The hotel was our station in that region as we stayed there about three days and went on a different route each day dumping all the bags in our hotel rooms. We went on the highest road in Bangladesh, The Chimbuk Niladri Resort Area. The view from there is just breathtaking, in fact views from anywhere in the hilly roads of Bandarban is breathtaking. It’s just so refreshing from the city life, the food, the people, the small family run tea stalls in the roads – they all have the human touch that lacks so much in the city. One morning we had our breakfast with freshly picked papaya and hilly bananas in the edge of a hill side road. Now imagine that.

This is my first blog writing. I am still a bit week in expressing the true feelings I had in this trip and the other. I am working on the last trip I had in Kushtia, hopefully that will be a bit better than this one. If you need any information on the detail of riding in Bangladesh, mail me at [e-mail]. I will be more than happy to address your queries.

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