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“Is there a chance the bus could get stuck in floodwater?” I asked the Cox’s Bazar counterman of Shanto Travels over the phone.
Inquiring about road conditions in Cumilla and Feni was important before booking my ticket for the nearly 700km grand journey across Bangladesh. Massive floods had inundated parts of the two districts, cutting off villages and marooning thousands.
The counterman said things had improved somewhat, but parts of the Dhaka-Chattogram highway were still flooded. “The bus that left yesterday has reached Palashbari. You can make it through, hopefully.”
I was not fully convinced, but was determined to hit the road anyway. For months, I had been planning this trip from the southern coastal town of Cox’s Bazar to the northernmost Rangpur division as part of my superlative travels. It is Bangladesh’s longest sleeper bus journey. I booked the ticket online for Tk 2,500.
The next day on August 28, I made my way from Cox’s Bazar’s state-of-the-art train station to the Shanto Travels counter at the Dolphin intersection. I had arrived in Cox’s Bazar from Chattogram, where I stayed at my uncle’s house for a few days.
“You are quite early,” said the Shanto Travels counterman. With the bus scheduled to depart at 4pm, I had over four hours on my hands. I walked to the beach, where a refreshing sea breeze gave me some relief from the autumn heat. I returned to the counter after having seafood for lunch, only to learn that the Shanto Travels bus had broken down in Chattogram.
My options were to either stay the night in Cox’s Bazar to catch tomorrow’s bus or switch to Shah Fateh Ali, another sleeper operator with a cheaper ticket. I had no salaried job and was travelling on a tight budget. So, I chose the second option and got Tk 200 back.
Not far from the counter stood the bus, its body painted in pink and tinted windows larger than typical AC coaches. I walked around it before boarding. First impression: it was clean.
The luxurious bus had a dual seating system, with spacious business class seats in the lower part and bunks in the upper one. The narrow aisle was carpeted. On both sides of the aisle were functional wooden steps to access the bunks.
Climbing the semicircular steps with shoes in my hand was tricky. Once in the bunk, I lay on the comfortable mattress and adjusted the AC. The pillow was soft, and so was the maroon blanket. The pillow cover and the bed linen were made of the same multi-colour-striped fabric.
Near my feet was a wall-mounted box where my shoes went in. My toes were almost touching the wall. A woman and her two kids were in the bunk across mine. I closed the ornate, stone blue curtains on the aisle side and opened those on the window side, providing me with full privacy and the outside view.
We departed 11 minutes late. The bus rolled up the gentle Dolphin intersection slope as the afternoon light peered through my window. On the Chattogram-Cox’s Bazar stretch of the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, we moved past buildings, paddies, and markets, veering north at the Ramu bypass to head to the port city.
The Dhaka-Chattogram highway, the main artery of the country’s road network, is part of the ancient Grand Trunk Road that stretched over 2,500 kilometres from present-day Bangladesh to Afghanistan via India and Pakistan. For centuries, traders transported goods like textiles and agricultural produce on the route, which continued to be a key economic corridor after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
The majority of the sleeper buses, which are having a moment in Bangladesh, perhaps ply this highway. On the Cox’s Bazar-Rangpur route, Shanto Travels and Shah Fateh Ali are the only sleeper services. This is a night service, meaning it is not possible to enjoy the daytime views, no matter which end of the route you start from.
By now, I noticed it was an annoyingly bumpy ride. I was struggling to remain steady, which puzzled me. Sleeper coaches promise added comfort, but the jerks I was enduring were a far cry from that. It reminded me of the horrible sleeper bus journeys in Vietnam I had read about on Western travellers’ blogs. My Bangladeshi experience partially matched theirs, at least for this bus.
Darkness descended. The illuminated bus interior looked dazzling. The supervisor gave every passenger a complementary water bottle. I tried to use the on-board Wi-Fi, but it was spotty and slow. At 8:55pm, we had our first break for 34 minutes. I had rice, chicken, and lentil at the restaurant for Tk 290.
Contrary to my expectation, I fell asleep on the bumpy ride and woke up before the second break at 2:32am at the well-known Hotel Noorjahan in Cumilla. Most of the buses plying the Dhaka-Chattogram highway have their breaks here.
Situated on the banks of the Bangladesh-India transboundary Gomati River, Cumilla had for centuries been ruled by kings and emperors. A 10-minute drive from Hotel Noorjahan takes you to Shalban Vihara, the archaeological site of an 8th century Buddhist monastery. Cumilla today is best known for the delicious rasmalai, with Matri Bhandar selling the authentic one since 1930.
“We would be very late,” I heard a passenger say. Several others discussed last evening’s gridlock near Chakaria. It was 8am and we were in Savar, much later than expected because of the gridlock caused by a political rally. One passenger groaned about the public suffering caused by such street programmes.
The northern districts have lagged much behind in socioeconomic development. Monga, a seasonal phenomenon of poverty from September to November due to the lack of farm work, was once a serious challenge there. The situation has improved now, but poverty persists, with the lack of education, better economic opportunities, and infrastructure development preventing northerners from catching up with their better-off peers.
The north’s lack of fast connectivity with Dhaka was largely solved by the Bangabandhu Bridge built on the Jamuna River in 1998. The Dhaka-Bogura bus journey time halved, which previously was 10-12 hours, including ferries. I gazed at the vast expanse of water while crossing the 4.8km bridge, on the other side of which was the Rajshahi division.
At Sirajganj’s Hatikumrul interchange, the gateway to the north, the bus swerved to take the Dhaka-Rangpur highway, where a major upgrade from Tangail’s Elenga to Rangpur’s Modern intersection was underway. The project aims to further cut the Dhaka-Rangpur travel time and improve regional connectivity with India and Nepal. I could see the construction of flyovers, underpasses, and bridges, and the resultant traffic jams.
We had our final break at midday in Bogura. The district’s fame rests on its curd, which has an unmatched taste and earned praise even beyond Bangladesh. The curd factories are concentrated in Sherpur, 20km south of downtown. Bogura’s Mahasthangarh contains vast ruins of the ancient Pundranagar city built along the Karatoya River’s western bank in the 3rd-4th century.
In Palashbari, Google Maps showed the destination was an hour away. I asked the well-dressed supervisor whether the driver had been changed at Hotel Noorjahan. He replied the same driver from Cox’s Bazar was still behind the wheel. Seeing my surprise, he said, “They are used to it.”
The landscape slowly shifted from villages and paddy fields to markets, houses, and narrow roads dominated by rickshaws, autorickshaws, and motorbikes. The driver pulled into the Kamarpara bus terminal at 4:11pm, ending the 24-hour journey. For the first time, I set foot in the northern city known for tobacco cultivation, shataranji weaving method, and delectable Haribhanga mangoes.