Wandering the Hills of Bangladesh

07/28/13

I spent last weekend wandering the Chittagong Hill Tracts on a class field trip. As usual, my complete lack of knowledge about Bangladesh meant that I had no idea what the Chittagong Hill Tracts were or what to expect when I got there. The basics are that the Chittagong Hill Tracts are the only hilly region of an otherwise very flat country. They are also home to a huge indigenous, non-ethnically Bengali population made up of large tribal groups. Over half the population is Buddhist and the area has a long history of conflict with the Bangladeshi government (including a possibly politically-motivated kidnapping that happened less than three weeks before our trip).

Walking to a Tanchangya Village in the Hill Tracts. Yes, it is really this beautiful.

In our orientation for said trip, which happened less than two days before we left (oh, Bangladeshi understandings of time, how you continue to confuse even me, she who is perpetually late and slow in all things involving time…), we were given a list of minor concerns, which included safety after this kidnapping (we were not to go anywhere alone or after dark ever), the odds of our bus getting in a traffic accident on the way back (the road between Dhaka and Chittagong is apparently known for LOTS of traffic accidents), and the prevalence of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the region (good thing I brought doxicyclene…). The night we were supposed to leave, then, I was ridiculously excited but also very nervous about what exactly this trip was going to entail.

Sunset in the Hill Tracts.

            All of the warnings turned out to be unnecessary in the end. What I should have been warned about was how pathetically ill-equipped my body is for overnight travelling. We boarded a train at 11 pm on Wednesday night and arrived in the city of Chittagong around 8 am Thursday morning. We had not managed to get sleeper cars, so we were in upright chairs all night long (and for some reason they left the lights on and a television blaring at full volume all night long as well). I woke up groggy and confused in order to be herded onto a van for the three hour drive up to the Hill Tracts. That first day, we drove out to Tanchangya Village, where they had been anxiously awaiting our arrival and had prepared a whole dance performance for us along with some tasty things to eat (rice cakes and homemade biscuits).

Look at these adorable girls who are about to dance for us! They were so curious and smiley and chatty, and I wish I could have understood more of their dialect of Bangla. One of them demanded a photo with her arm around my shoulder before I left.

I couldn’t help feeling a moment of postcolonial discomfort at how warm and welcoming these people were to what was basically a group of white tourists, and I am still ridiculously curious about why our visit was exciting to them. I know why it was exciting to me (they were kind, their lifestyle is very different from my own which is always interesting, and it was a good chance to exercise my language skills since they spoke a different and difficult to understand dialect of Bangla), but what could I possibly offer in return besides a curious eye and an openness to the experience? How does one act as a tourist without automatically becoming a voyeur? Is there another way to be in foreign places?

A home in the Tanchangya Village.

            The next day, we boarded small ferries on Kaptai Lake, the biggest man-made lake in Bangladesh (which apparently was partly funded by the US and displaced nearly 100 thousand people in order to build a hydro-electric plant…). Kaptai Lake felt endless and we spent the entire day relaxing on our boats as we passed island after island. At one point, we stopped and hiked to a nearby waterfall.

Waterfall on an island in Kaptai Lake.

On another island, we stopped for lunch at a tiny, hilltop restaurant run by a Christian, Chakma (the name of his tribe) man named Sujoy. I mention Sujoy, because his reaction to finding out I was (ethnically) Jewish was so startling: “It has been my dearest wish to meet a Jew. I have read the bible many times and I know Jesus was Jewish and I have always wondered what Jews would be like.”

Village on an island in Kaptai Lake.

Sujoy’s restaurant served the most delicious lunch of fried fish, savory greens, spicy bamboo, and some sort of mashed-up peaflower. When we left, he shook my hand, gave me a guava as a gift, and repeated his delight at having the chance to meet me. I think if Sujoy had been less kind, I might have just felt awkward at his excitement over my tenuous ethnic identity. But he was kind, and it was interesting to talk to him about his relationship to Christianity in a world in which it is such a tiny religious minority.

An outdoor restaurant at the top of a hill on a tiny island in a giant lake. Fun!

Climbing off the boats is harder than it looks!

           That night, we dined at a local Chakma restaurant at which we also sampled the locally made rice wine and beer. Bangladesh is more or less a dry country, so for many, this was the first drink of the trip. Some of the teachers also sampled the wine and beer and it turned into a silly evening of laughing at each other’s mild tipsiness. The wine and beer, by the way, were not particularly pleasant tasting, but the food was once again amazing, spicy with a lot of interesting flavors and textures, whereas most of the food I have had in Dhaka has been kind of uniformly mushy and only blandly spiced. I attempted to take a picture but this is food you have to taste with your mouth and not your eyes, I think. I have also gotten surprisingly adept at picking tiny bones out of fish using only my right hand, since eating with your left hand is considered rude--and eating with silverware somehow feels wrong when all the Bangladeshis are just digging in with their hand (plus it is WAY less fun).

This food cannot possibly look as good as it tasted.

            The final day of our trip, we headed back down to Chittagong, stopping along the way for a visit with some very special turtles. On our trip schedule it had said “do the usual thing with the turtles,” and I had spent a good hour amusing myself wondering what the “usual thing” might be. Turns out, that there is a man-made pond in which live these giant, wish-granting turtles. If you feed them and then rub their backs, it is said that they will grant you a wish. So that is the usual thing. Mystery cleared up. No idea how it started or why these particular turtles in this particular place, but they were super cute, creepy, and awesome at the same time. I am not complaining.

It's the magic turtles! But I'm not telling you what I wished for.

            Finally, it was time to get on an overnight bus back to Dhaka. I was starting to come down with a cold, so I popped some Nyquil and passed out on the most plush passenger bus I have ever seen. It had extendable, cushioned footrests as well as seats that leaned almost all the way back. There were only three seats in a row so there was plenty of space to stretch out. It would have been pretty idyllic except that I saw a cockroach crawl across the window shade by my head just as the drugs kicked in (and hence was too tired to do anything except observe it and then fall asleep…hopefully it decided to go somewhere else…). Ah, Bangladeshi wildlife. Goats, turtles, monkeys, lizards, cockroaches, spiders the size of your hand (don’t worry, those are in another part of Bangladesh). Every day is an adventure.

India is crawling with monkeys, but these are the first ones I have seen in Bangladesh! Monkeys, for those not in the know, are as ridiculously cute as they look from afar, but they are also foul-tempered, aggressive, and thieving. Do not mess with the monkeys! I accidentally got too close to one of the nursing mothers and received the most spiteful eyebrow raise and tooth baring that I have ever seen. I thought she was going to come after me...