Day Trip to Rangamati

Today we spent a lovely day in the hill tracts outside of Chittagong called Rangamati. It was a long ride by van, but the road was much better than going to the Tea Plantation. There was an actual dividing line in the highway - not that it made much difference, but it was an attempt at keeping traffic divided.

It took about 2 hours to get to the Hill Tracts plus time to stop at check points to sign in. We stopped at 3 checkpoints, two for us to give our visa numbers and one for the driver to register the van.

The Rangamati area is where indigenous people of Bangladesh live "protected" by the government. The roads were better than any in and around Chittagong and we were able to stop and take a boat ride on Lake Katai with an armed guard. Lake Katai is a large man-made lake created to support an electric plant. It displaced thousands of people at the time and the government made many concessions to finish the project.

The boats don't look to sturdy but they got us where we wanted to go. It was a very hazy afternoon and we were able to get lunch at a restaurant on one of the islands in the lake.

Below is a picture of one of the homes we passed in the region.

On the way back our van was stuck in several political rallies ... one with thousands of people. Having that many people marching past the car was a little disconcerting but with the upcoming elections in Bangladesh - it seems everyone is getting excited.

It took us over 3 hours to get back to Chittagong....it was nice to be staying at the Guest House for the University. We were well taken care of there.