This was my second visit to Chattogram. After the end of my final exams for the 7th semester— I found myself with two options in hand. My first option was to join my cousin’s post-wedding celebration, and the second one was to book a few train tickets and hop on a ride to Chattogram with my friend Sadat. I wasn’t able to attend the wedding itself thanks to my finals, so I decided to opt for the Chattogram visit.
I booked a total of five tickets for the Mohanagar Express from Dhaka to Chattagram, set for the 27th of December. However, my roommate, Abrar, informed me that Mohanagar Express is not the wisest decision considering the longer journey time and security issues. Hence, I canceled my tickets and booked six tickets for Sonar Bangla Express. Our new date for departure was 26th of December, and the extra ticket was for our Pakistani friend Yar Mohammad, a last moment addition to our party. Aside from him and I, Sadat, Safwan, Rasel, and Rafi made up party of six.
My finals ended on the 23rd, after which I immediately returned home from my dorm to get prepared for Chattogram. In IUT, there’s a Chatgaiya, an inhabitant of Chattogram. in almost every dorm room. I’m blessed to have a lot of Chatgaiya friends, among whom was Jawad, who invited us to his place for lunch on the very first day of our visit. Then we planned on visiting Abrar’s hometown at Lohagara along with some other friends.
Day: 01
When I woke up on the morning of the 26th, I found it to be very foggy. My friend Yar Mohammad and I planned on catching the train from the Airport Railway station, whereas the rest of our friends will be joining us from the Kamalapur Station. Putting on warm clothes and gathering my necessities, I headed outside. Finding a CNG right in front of my house, I set sail towards the station, where I arrived within 30 minutes.
Yar Mohammad was waiting for me outside of the station. We got some snacks from there as we skipped breakfast, and waited for the train, which arrived ten minutes later than scheduled. Because of our last minute booking, we couldn’t find a coach with six seats available. So our seats were scattered across three coaches, but after some effort (and greasing the palms of a train official), we were able to find great seats in a different coach for all six of us.
We conversed about a variety of topics and made fun of each other during the journey. After tiring myself out, I fell asleep. However, thanks to a passenger turning the AC on in the compartment, I found myself unable to recognize my own voice when I woke up. I had hot coffee and watched movies on Netflix to try and ease my pain, and when none of it worked, I slept again.
We arrived at the Chattogram station around 12 pm, from where Sadat, Safwan, Yar, and I took a CNG to head towards Jawad’s house at Khulshi. Rafi and Rasel headed for their friend Jalal’s place. On our way to Jawad’s we made a pit stop to buy some sweets.
I observed that the Chattogram roads were similar to the roads at Shillong, and Safwan agreed. Chattogram is a hilly region, and the road to Jawad’s height was so steep that it was quite difficult for the CNG to make the climb.
Jawad gave us a warm welcome, and we got to chatting about this and that as Jawad’s mother prepared food for us. We were famished, and the lunch was delicious. We thanked aunty for the delicious food, and told her about our plans for the next four days. She insisted we have dinner at her place too, but we couldn’t promise anything as we had other plans.
From there, we were to meet up with Abrar at a location of his choosing, which Jawad helped us find on Google Maps. Our plan was to go visit Bhatiari, and upon having a short break after lunch, we got ready to head out. After thanking Jawad and his mother for the hospitality, we hit the road again.
Unlike Dhaka, public buses were rare in Chattogram. People preferred to use three wheelers as their chief form of public transport. I found that the traffic was lighter in comparison to Dhaka as well, but at certain busy locations like Chok Bazar or Chattagram Medical College, we found ourselves in jams. We arrived the earliest, and after a while Abrar, Rasel, Rafi, Shadid, Jalal, Sadman, and Shahriyar all joined us.
We left our travel plans from then on entirely up to the Chatgaiyas, and after their discussions, we hired an auto (a local four wheeler vehicle) to take us to the entrance of Bhatiari. From then, we hired two CNGs to take us further.
As we passed the second gate of Bangladesh Military Academy, I remembered a few of my friends who had joined the Bangladesh Army. They had to stay at the BMA for three long years of struggle and hard training. I live near the Dhaka Cantonment, so by observing the road condition, I was almost sure that the area was being controlled by the army. We reached near Bhatiari lake, and hired a boat for a cruise.
The artificial lake had remarkably clean water. As it was almost sunset time, the warm sun rays of the winter reflected off of the surface of the water and landed on us. Many were fishing in the lake with their fishing poles, and our boatman informed us that you needed to pay a toll to fish until 6 PM, after which nobody was allowed to even be by the lakeside. Many other tourists roamed the lake on their boats, and we were probably the last ones who were able to catch a boat ride that way. We have much photographic evidence of our little lake cruise.
It was dusk when we left the boat club. On our way back, we took a bunch of photos and dropped by the cafe in the golf club. I ordered the hot cream of chicken soup due to my cold, and found it to be quite delicious. When we resumed our journey after Maghrib, we found that it was completely dark outside, and the roads were nearly emptied out. We had a full moon that night, which we appreciated as we walked on the empty roads. Lights from the BMA was visible from far away, and as we were quite tired, four of us got on a CNG at the second gate of the Gold Club. Just like earlier, the CNG dropped us at the Bhatiari road entrance, and we took an auto back to Chattogram city again.
Abrar helped us find a good hotel at a reasonable price. We settled for Hotel Well Park, a three star hotel in the area. Yar Mohammad, Safwan, and I were to stay there. The room was quite good, and cost us a total of 7,000 BDT. The staff welcomed us with soft drinks, and after finishing all the formalities, we took hot showers, had a tasty dinner, and retired for the night.
Day: 02
For the second day, our plan was to visit Chattogram University and we were planning to go there by their own shuttle train. We had our complimentary hotel breakfast early in the morning and took a CNG to the old railway station to meet up with Abrar. The train was in poor condition, but the upside was that anyone could board it free of charge.
The train started within twenty minutes, passing through the city into an endless expanse of greenery. Passing behind Chattogram Cantonment and the BMA, it stopped right at the entrance of Chattogram University. As we walked through the campus, we found that it was slightly foggy thanks to being situated in a rural area. Chattogram University has the largest land area of any University Campus in Bangladesh, and there are hills all throughout the compound. Some locals even live inside the campus due to owning the rights to their land.
We visited Chattagram University Debating Society (CUDS), which is a very popular destination in the campus for tourists thanks to a meme going viral about the place. We moved on after capturing a few photos, finding that the large expanse of the campus was beginning to tire us out. We visited the famous Palm Garden, taking some picturesque shots of sun rays peeking through the palm leaves. We went to see the lake, even though there was no water because it was winter. It was here that Abdullah Abrar (jokingly titled Lelbaba) joined us here. He’s a student of IUT MPE department.
Ashikur, a friend of Sadat’s, joined us here to show us around the campus, as he was a student here. He showed us the waterfall, and the realization that the university has a natural waterfall in its boundary amazed us. We visited the central campus of CU, and we observed that our IUT campus was probably smaller than this particular field by itself. We had lunch at a place called “Ladies’ Jhupri”, and went to visit the Botany department. There were so many trees that the place was cold from everywhere.
As we had to catch the shuttle train back to the city, we left the campus within 4 PM. Ashiqur told us that we left nearly half of the campus unexplored, and we thanked him for acting as our de facto tour guide. We boarded the train with CU students, who were returning home or going for their tutoring jobs.
We reached the city within one hour. We were to stay at Abdullah’s place, and met him and our friend Mashruf at Chokbazar. I found Ohi and Inzamam, friends of Abrar, there. Abrar bade us adieu for the day, and Abdullah (AKA Mannan) and Masruf took us to Abdullah’s place. On the way, Mashruf showed us his sister’s dental chamber. We reached Mannan’s place, freshened up and headed out to roam around a bit. Jawad and Sadat also joined us. They took us to Chattogram College, the alma mater of many of my friends, seniors, and juniors. Abrar and Masruf also studied there, so he showed us around.
When we returned to Mannan’s place we found that his family had prepared an entire feast for us. A whole chicken was on the table with Khuchuri, alongside two or three different types of seafood, salad and delicious chutney. It was rather tough for us to eat so much in the middle of traveling. Jawad mentioned that, “You haven’t seen a Chatgaiya wedding yet. We feed the guests until their stomach is totally full”.
And that is how the Chatgaiya tend to their guests.
Mannan suggested we go to his uncle’s place near Chattagram Sea Port to make our visit to the Patenga sea beach easier. We complied, and with Safwan and Yar, I headed to his uncle’s flat. His aunt works in Chattagram Port so she has a government residential flat in the port area. We chatted with his uncle, finding him to be a very friendly man.
Day: 03
On the next day, we woke up around eight. Mannan and Masruf bought some bone curry and parathas from a restaurant so that we could experience the traditional Chatgaiya breakfast. We readied ourselves to visit Patenga beach, where we reached around elevent. On the way to the beach, we found lots of small cargo ships anchored, waiting to enter the port for loading. I ordered a crab from a small shop, a decision I ended up regretting.
After finishing up sightseeing, we got into a hired microbus and thanked Mannan and Masruf for their hospitality. Keats, one of my Chatgaiya university friends, joined us that day. The car crossed the Karnaphuli river by the newly made Karnaphuli Tunnel. The tunnel was bery nicely decorated. On the other side of the tunnel, we got out of the car and had an amazing lunch at the “Tunnel Restaurant”, where we also got to taste the best firni of Chattogram.
We resumed our sightseeing after lunch. We set off towards Abrar’s hometown, Lohagara, where he invited all of us for a day-night tour. We reached there at almost 3 PM. We were welcomed warmly, and offered snacks after freshening up. We played Short Pitch Cricket on the rooftop, dividing ourselves in two groups based on institutions. On one hand, we were the IUTians, on the other team were our BUETian friends. Despite our repeated warnings against the imbalance of strong players, this was how the teams were divided, and we proceeded to win all the matches.
After our cricket matches were done, we prayed for Maghrib, and went for a tour in the village. First, we visited the newly made Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar rail line, situated right beside Abrar’s place. We tried taking some long exposure photos and astrophotography there. From there, we passed through a graveyard, which was situated on a hillock. We stopped at a tea shop near a mosque, where everyone with the exception of Safwan and I began talking about ghosts for nearly two hours.
We returned to Abrar’s house around 8 pm. Right after returning, a delicious dinner was served to us, after which we tried a new casual game called “Mafia.” Ohi introduced us to this game, telling us about how he often played this game in the dorms at night. He explained the rules to us. The rules were simple, there was a group of villagers, a doctor, a policeman, and two or three Mafia roles. Except for the Mafia members, no one was allowed to reveal their role. The villagers had to save themselves from the Mafia and the Mafia had to try to kill the villagers one by one. It was an intense game of manipulation, and when we went for bed, it was almost 3 in the morning.
Day: 03
We woke up late the next day, and had our breakfast. Those of us who were visiting from Dhaka were to leave after the Jummah prayer, so we packed our bags and left Abrar’s place within 10 AM after thanking him and his family. Upon reaching the city, we booked bus tickets back to Dhaka before praying Jummah, and had lunch at Handi with overpriced and subpar Kacchi Biryani. Our friend Shadid dropped us off at the bus station.
The bus departed at 3 PM, and made a brief stop at Cumilla for snacks. I forgot the name of the restaurant, but we found a unique kind of paratha there. The bus reached Kawranbazar of Dhaka at 10 PM. As it was very late, I suggested that Yar stay at my place for the night and return to IUT the following day. I texted Keats about hosting a cricket competition the next time we visited, as he along with his CCPC (Chattogram Cantonment Public College) friends were very fond of the sport.
With that, my second visit to Chattogram came to a close, leaving behind a hope of exploring the city more in the future.