The Day after going to the tea estates we rented some bikes and headed down the road towards the nearby National Park, tribal villages and a big lake. The bikes were the typical Chinese one speed bikes that you see everywhere in Bangladesh. Also typical of most bikes in Bangladesh, they were falling apart. My bike’s chain fell off at least 15-20 times during the day, the seats were terrible (I still could not sit on a chair a whole day later), and the brakes only gradually slowed you down.
Setting out on our bike journey
Left to right: Frederica, Adrian, Ross, Josh and Julian
All in all, it could not have been a more authentic Bangladeshi experience. The scenery along country roads was amazing, the people were friendly everywhere. I think word of a group of white bikers spread through the area before us. As we approached a cluster of houses the children were always quick to run out to the road. Often you would hear “How are you?” shouted across fields at us. And everywhere people wanted us to stop and talk and take pictures of them.
An abandoned BP gas station
I see you!
Beyond the formalities of hello, how are you, country, and name there were very few who knew English. This made it very hard to get directions to the places we were planning on going. In the end we could not find the tribal village we were planning on visiting, and we did not want to be forced to pay for the park and the other tribal villages twice since we were planning on going the next day with a guide.
Stopping for some cha
So we were left with biking approximately 20km to a natural lake north of Sirmongal. By the end of the trip though I would not have cared if we had never found the lake, I was happy just to bike though the rural countryside. The scenery were beautiful, from flooded rice paddies, to hills covered with tea plants, a sheep traffic jam, and the wonderful little clusters of bamboo, metal and clay houses.
Traffic jam, Bangla style
Eventually by just asking “lake?” people directed us in the right direction. However, they would not let us bike all the way up to the lake though, so we had to pay a guy to watch our bikes for us while we were at the lake. The lake was a beautiful mixture of lilies and little bays that wound between rolling hills that typify the area.
Madhabpur Lake
We first walked up one side of the lake to a couple lookout thatch gazebos and up along the paths through the tea plants that lined the slopes of the hills. We quickly picked up a enthusiastic tour guide who ran around picking up lilies and pointing a tea plants.
The next trend is hair fashion
Eventually we managed to lose our guides and were able to sit down by the water’s edge on our own and enjoy the lake in peace. The rolling hills here are one of the few places in Bangladesh where you are able to sometimes see no one for 360 degrees all around you.
Lillis
We then headed back to our cottage, where we decided that we liked it so much that we chose to cram all six of us into one room, rather than be forced to sleep in Srimongal. The guide book described one of the hotels in the city centre as a place that sees a lot of “paid for” love. And after getting a tour we can confirm that description.
Cheers,
Mike
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