It was eight in the evening, and almost everyone was already waiting in front of Curzon Hall as agreed. You could see the excitement on every face, and no wonder. COVID had cancelled our study tour twice in a row, and now, on the third attempt, the plan was finally coming true. Once the last few arrived, our teachers gave us a short briefing, we took a group photo, and we set off.
We were 39 students, four teachers (Mihir sir, Tahmina ma’am, Chandan sir and Abul Kashem sir) and one staff member, Saiful bhai, a team of 44 in all. The first destination was Sajek. Our tour had three main stops: Sajek, Khagrachari and Rangamati.
From St Martin’s to Sajek
Not that we had wanted to go to these places from the start. If the first plan had worked out, we would probably have been on our way to St Martin’s Island and Cox’s Bazar. But the route to St Martin’s was closed, so that was off. Where else could we go? There was a lot of discussion with our teachers. The Sundarbans came up first. Secretly I was all for it, because nothing else looks or feels like the Sundarbans. But we would have had to spend the whole time on a launch, which would have been hard on everyone, so that plan was dropped too.
Mihir sir asked everyone in the room once more where we could go. One of us said Sajek. Everyone agreed, Khagrachari and Rangamati were added, and the draft of a four-day study tour was ready. Today the first step of that draft was finally happening.
A World Cup night on the bus
Before long the tall brick-and-concrete buildings were behind us and we were out of Dhaka. The singing and clapping inside the bus died down after a while, and everyone settled into their seats. It went quiet; people were resting and only the bus kept going on its own. After a stretch of road we stopped at a restaurant, freshened up, had tea and got back on.
I thought the rest of the ride would pass in silence, but I had forgotten about the FIFA World Cup. At one in the morning the whole bus split into two camps, Brazil and Argentina, and the girls joined in just as loudly as the boys. The commentary was playing on the speaker and everyone was watching on their phones. Then the network started playing up, the stream kept freezing, and the mood dropped. At one point there was no network at all and no updates. Suddenly someone shouted that Argentina had scored, and the whole bus erupted in Argentina chants. After the match ended, some time past three, the bus slowly went quiet again.
It did not last. At about half past four we reached Matiranga, where the bus stopped. From here all the vehicles enter Khagrachari together, and there was some time before the convoy would move. We got down and wandered about, though the sun was not up yet so there was not much to see. We all sat down for tea at a tong, one of those tiny roadside tea shacks. Over that tea Chandan sir, Abul Kashem sir and Subarna ma’am talked with us in a way I could not have imagined. It felt like an elder brother and sister advising us about our future plans while we listened and worked out what to do. This is the one thing I love most about a study tour: you see everyone up close, you get everyone close. I secretly wished for a bit more of that time, but happiness never lasts long. The vehicles started moving and we all had to get back on the bus. Still, this was only the first page of a memory; the whole tour was still ahead.
Eco Chari Inn and the chander gari
Slowly we entered Khagrachari, which is the way to Sajek. The sun was rising in the east, and the winding road, the hills rising and falling beside it and the trees big and small were now faintly visible. Watching all this from the window, we came through Khagrachari bazar and arrived at a hotel at about half past six: Eco Chari Inn. To me the hotel itself was worth seeing. A handsome building clad in blue glass, hills on every side, and below it fields of paddy and sugarcane. The flowers in front were a delight: Rangoon creeper (Combretum indicum) over the gate, yellow bougainvillea inside, crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii) dotted red, and garlic vine (Mansoa alliacea) blooming in clusters. A perfect spot for anyone who loves taking pictures.
We freshened up, had breakfast and set off again, this time not by bus but in Sajek’s own vehicle, the chander gari. The name means moon car; they are the open jeeps that carry everyone up and down these hills. Four teachers and all of us piled into four of them. Before getting in we learnt that we would stay at this same hotel on the way back from Sajek, and I was quietly pleased to be returning to such a lovely place.
Within moments the jeep had left the town behind. The road wound through the hills, with a bamboo-and-timber house here and there beside it and rows of banana plants. The more I looked, the more I kept looking. In the jeep someone played the song “Chander Gari” by Tuhin Kanti Das of the band Krishnopokkho. Somewhere in the middle of that song and that scenery we stopped at a tourist police camp. We spent a little while there, drank sugarcane juice and got ready to move on. But before we left, something funny happened. Three or four people were taking a photo in front of the jeep, all Argentina supporters, and someone declared it the Argentina supporters’ frame. One by one people squeezed in shouting “I am Argentina too, I am Argentina too”, and when the teachers joined in at the end the frame was packed. We all enjoyed that a lot.
The slope at Baghaihat and a roller-coaster pilot
We set off again, and the football banter went on without a pause until the next stop, the Baghaihat army camp. Everyone climbed out of the jeeps and started looking around. The rest area sits beside a low hillock, but the sun was so fierce it was hard to stand in it. Many of us had brought winter clothes thinking Sajek would be cold, and now felt rather silly. Still, the heat was nothing next to the beauty around us. Some of us walked about; some sat in the shade of the trees by the hillock and rested. Plenty of other vehicles were waiting there like ours, and a few small shops had sprung up along the road to serve this stream of people. People were buying fruit, bamboo mugs and other cheap little things, and I was one of the buyers.
When I looked more closely at the hill slope beside the road, I found all sorts of pteridophytes. The Selaginella spreading over the ground like grass was impossible to miss. A few naturally grown Macaranga peltata trees kept the slope in shade, while around the camp itself there were planted rain trees (Samanea saman) and akashmoni (Acacia auriculiformis). The plant that really caught my eye on the slope was castor, bherenda (Ricinus communis). It was in flower, and a small crowd of plant lovers had gathered around it.
We spent a good while looking at this and that, and then the drive continued without any more stops. On the road to Sajek I noticed something new. Whenever a chander gari passed, the small children standing by the roadside waved and called out tata. It made me very curious, and at some point I started waving back. Hills rose and fell on both sides of the road, small waterfalls appeared now and then, and the teak (Tectona grandis) plantations along the road looked beautiful. Between the teak trees grew another plant I recognised, the broom grass phuljharu (Thysanolaena latifolia), whose flower heads are made into the brooms we sweep our houses with.
Perhaps going slowly would have made it all more enjoyable, and we would have seen much more. But our pilot, which is what the drivers of the chander gari are called, was driving as if we were on a roller coaster. At first the speed was a little unsettling, but the moment we overtook one of our own four jeeps everyone shouted “pilot, pilot”, and that was the start of it. We kept chanting to cheer him on, and one by one he left every jeep in front of us behind. The overtaking felt risky, on a hill road that was also very narrow, but everyone was having so much fun and the pilot seemed so skilled that I forgot the risk and joined in. At one point we passed our second jeep too and were right behind the first. Just as he was about to overtake it, the pilot stopped the jeep and got down. What was that about, everyone asked. He had a paper packet in his hand; he handed it over at a shop there, exchanged a few words and came back. By then every single vehicle we had passed had gone by us again. Everyone was so disappointed. We stayed hopeful that he would work his magic again, but no, not that day, and not until the very last day did he overtake a single vehicle again.
First day in the land of clouds
At about half past twelve we reached Sajek. Our friend Robiul knew someone there, so rooms had been booked in advance at the Darjeeling Resort. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. Look out from the back of the resort and the view runs away into the distance: masses of cloud, and the play of light and shade they throw on the ground. After freshening up we went for lunch. The menu was quite different from what we usually eat in the city or the village, and though it was on the spicy side the food was delicious. We ate well, went back to the resort for a short rest and then set off for Konglak hill. This time we were allowed to sit on the roof of the jeeps, so most of the boys rode on top, whooping all the way. On top of Konglak there was a frenzy of looking around and taking pictures. There were few people at first, but within minutes the summit was packed, so that if you tried to photograph one person several others walked into the frame. Everyone took their pictures and we said goodbye to Konglak before dusk.
We reached the helipad right at twilight and sat down in a big circle. Sir asked whoever could sing to start, and the rest of us to join in. Siam sang and everyone followed. Tired from the whole day, listening to songs over some light snacks felt wonderfully restful. Dinner time was approaching, so after a little longer we got ready to head back. The resort is only a short way from the helipad, so most of us walked. There is a row of food stalls just below the helipad, and we went to see what was on offer before going back: all sorts of food, most of it the kind you get in the city too. Tahmina ma’am treated those of us who were there to momos and bamboo chicken, which is chicken cooked inside a length of bamboo, and I was one of the lucky ones.
Back at the resort we showered and went for dinner at the same place as lunch. As agreed, they had everything ready for our barbecue party; we only had to go and eat. I had thought it would be more fun if we did the barbecue ourselves, but given how exhausted we were, this was the better way. At the very start of the tour Chandan sir had told us he had searched the internet, asked people who had been there, and fixed on whatever would be best. Now it seemed he had been exactly right.
With dinner over, the day was done and there were no more plans, and even the thought of that was a relief. At the resort there was no looking around, straight to bed. And there something funny happened. Like the other buildings in Sajek, the Darjeeling Resort is built entirely of wood, so you can hear every word from the next room. We could hear what our friends next door were discussing, so I knocked on the wooden wall and asked whether everything was all right in there. The answer came back: it’s going fine. The deeper the night, the clearer the sounds became. Someone snoring next door, even footsteps on the floor above, kept jolting my ears. But no sound could get in the way of a body that tired, and I never knew when I fell asleep.
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