s21rc's shack

January 23rd, 2010 | Posted by admin

Hello Travelers,
Today I will tell you about our last month’s trip to Boro Mowdok. Though it was planned for ten persons but as one of us canceled in the last moment we had to go nine. We started our journey towards Bandarban by night coach on 24th December 2300 hour. Well, to make this story short I am not going to tell you all the things happens in the bus, but I am sure you can guess what can go right (wrong!!) when there are nine adventure seeker travels in a same bus for 10 long hours :p


In the early morning we have reached Bandarban and found that we missed the first Chandergari service to Thanchi. Rahat and Foisal went for hiring a Chandergari for us, the day was full of tourist and not a single vehicle was available for hiring. Somehow Rahat managed to get a Chander gari with some extra tips who had another same trip at 1200hour. Ok, this guy almost makes the chandergari fly, in around two hours we reached Thanchi. In the way we had very spicy and testy biriyani@Taka20 near Chimbuk with boiled egg.

After having some snacks and shopping at Thanchi bazar we started for Tindu around 1300hour by two slim shape boats which look like canoe. In the first day evening we camp at Tindu on the river bank. Plenty of driftwood were available to make fire, our boatman Firoz and his mates started cooking Khichuri (without oil and salt) and Egg bhuna (hot hot hot!!). After diner few of us went to sleep in the tent and the rest gathered near the campfire. There we made some coffee putting our tin mug on the wood and stone in the fire. We also baked some egg in the fire by making mud balls and putting the eggs inside.

With a bowl of noodles and some coffee we started our second day, pack the tents and headed for our next destination, Ramakri. In the way we stopped at Boro Pathor for tea break, had plenty of photos there. There were huge stones hanging over us, incredible view. Before Yanrai there was this Ramakri falls (people may argue whether we can call it a falls, to my understanding it is a cascaded type falls). I tried to take some photos of the falls in slow shutter but always there is someone walking in the falls (yes, you can walk on that falls without getting wet even). At Yanrai we had our second camp on the river bank. In the night near the camp fire here we did slide show. One by one we put our camera on a tripod and saw all the pics we have taken so far with hilarious comments and criticism.

In the third day we crossed Choto Mowdok and reached Boro Mowdok at afternoon, we found some nice grass land on the river side for camping but the BDR demanded to set our camp within their eyesight and near their camp (good for Abdullah as he always went to the BDR camp searching for toilets in the exact time when they do breakfast, and he never say no to them when they ask him to do breakfast)

In our mind we were ready to go further ahead but the BDR were so strict and insisted us to leave Mowdok as soon as possible in the morning the way we came. They have visited our camp several times in the night and also in the early morning; we guess they were thinking we might flee for Andhar manik or Lekri. We don’t blame them, they were bit concern about seeing this strange group with GPS, detailed topo map of the area, tents and all camping gears and gadgets, and furthermore asking the locals how to go to Andhar manik, or bat cave or the WWII air strip hidden in the jungle.

It took two days to return to Thanchi, fourth night we camped at Ramakri. On our way back we meet some of our friends (another group) at Boro Pathor. All of us joined and had some real raw tea (by that time our sugar stock was finish) and swim afterward for hours. Our new travel met Sajjad had some urgent task in Dhaka and wanted to leave us as we were stopping everywhere, so, to save time he took a local service boat which was heading for Thanchi. Well, at the end we reached at the same time at Thanchi

To me it was one of the cool trips I ever had, but the luxury of sitting on the boat and having warm meal was not what we wanted in the hills, so we planned that we will walk through Poddo to Boardingpara by an Unknown Jhiri/stream and if time permits will summit Tajindong as well. But that is not part of this story, this one ends here. “And they lived happily ever after”

Map and GPS trace for the whole route is available for download at: Banglatrek website