Tour to Dhaka’s two sub-urban areas

 

Tour Date: February 1, 2008

Today’s tour was arranged all of a sudden. I phoned my friend Ahsan for a personal reason and he said me he is planning to visit a place inside Dhaka but not develop part. Although I had some works to do, I instantly canceled my works, accepted the idea and agreed to meet him within an hour.

By 11:00 in the morning, we started our journey for the sub-urban areas. The weather was perfect one for me since it was a typical winter morning with soft and warm sunlight. There was a weak flow of air which was also matching with everything.

First we hired a Riksha (a three wheeler pollution free vehicle commonly seen in Bangladesh) and reached near to PostoGola Bridge. Then we bought some sweets (locally named as ‘ChomChom’) for both of us and got into a three wheeler CNG vehicle. During our crossing the BuriGongGa Bridge over the PostoGola bridge, we enjoyed the river’s calm and cool beauty. Arriving to the other side of the bridge (in Arakol village), we searched for a tea stall and we found a wood & bamboo made stall (“Cha-er dokan” in local language) which was built over a small and narrow canal. We took only tea in that restaurant and flies were active all around us. From the wooden window of the restaurant, we saw a beautiful ‘Kosai’ (local name and English name is Brown Shrike) bird was hunting insects. But before the hunting, the bird pretended that it is enjoying sunlight sitting in a branch of a tree which was at the side of the narrow canal and it would not like to move at this moment. Aha! A professional hunter indeed!

Then we hired a Riksha and started for a very old Mondir (a temple of Hindu people). Or the Buddhist could be owner of this temple and I am not sure who the owner was. After reaching there we found only the “beautiful” tower of the temple. Ahsan said that may be there were other buildings adjacent to this temple tower. But those building were lost in the wave of time. The temple was so ancient that we found it somewhat inclined to the east direction. When we were nearby the temple, we saw a group of beautiful long-tail parrots (Rose Ringed parrot) were flying over our head and over temple with making a chorus of “Chi Chi Chi” sound. My friend Ahsan told me that these parrots live in the holes of the temple and we saw the smart design of holes in the upper part of the temple tower. Some young and middle-age trees are living on this ancient architecture although they looked pale and I guess they looked pale because of lack of proper nutrition. How can such an ancient building provide food to these trees?

Photo 1: The full view of the Mondir tower

Photo 2: Close shot of the Mondir tower

Photo 3: Close shot of the lower part of the Mondir tower

Photo 4: The tower if you see just from the bottom of it and we saw bats taking rest in the dark part

Photo 5: Another picture of inner part of the tower

Photo 6: Close shot of inner wall

Photo 7: One of the small Mondir designs in the inner part of the Mondir

We went under the tower and looked upward. Ah! It was so nice. We saw the semi-dark region of the tower and some bats were sitting on the inner wall of the tower. A marvelous scene! But we also got a very bad smell of stool of the birds and bats although we took it as natural.

We were there for half an hour and several groups of parrots were flying over our head. Ahsan recorded the sweet “Chi Chi Chi” parrot tones in his cell phone. We also enjoyed the sunlight & sweet airflow and saw the beauty of another small narrow canal (“Khal” in local language).

Then we crossed a weak dirty Shako (wooden small bridge) and entered another village (TeGhaRia). Like the first village, there also we say the common presence of goats. May be lots of people are nowadays caring goats as profitable business. Some of the local people were looking to us with little curiosity as we differed in dress up and body language.

During our tour we also saw the simple & easy life leading downtown people, domestic hens, goats and new-born cute little goats. We even saw two goats were sitting on the black pitch road and enjoying sunlight! Vehicles were passing them without disturbing them. We found potato and some other winter crop fields beside the roads. We found people taking shower and washing cloths in little ponds. Beside a pond, we saw a father showing anger on his young son for not coming and/or making late to take shower in the pond water in this winter morning. We saw a white throated king fishers. We changed Riksha several time and every ride was simply fun. Do you know the downtown areas and villages have its own natural smell? You will get it whenever you visit such a place. We did not miss it even.

Thanks to Ahsan for taking some pictures by his mobile phone as I can share them here with everyone.

Overall it was an enjoying tour although short. Ahsan is planning for our next tour to DhoLeshShor river side. Aha! Who knows how interesting & enjoying that place going to be! I am just waiting for that time and even from today.

An interesting thing is our total cost for the whole tour was near to 1 (one) US Dollar!