A JOURNEY TO REMEMBER

 

-A JOURNEY TO REMEMBER-

'Saint Martin'


"Don't worry about being tired, it will be a stress-free 7 hour journey before the next 2 hour cruise-" My exaggerated scoff interrupted my father's talk. 


"How ironic," I said, leaning on the chair in the waiting area of the bus terminal in Chittagong.

The month-long excitement disappeared amidst the tedious journey. It would have been easier if only we didn't visit our hometown and had returned just before making this long trip.

This was the first ever journey my family and I had planned after like a decade or more. The desperation of going out during the pandemic added more expectation to the tour. 

The bus arrived a little later than the estimated time, not surprising considering the gridlock that occurs on the way from Dhaka to Chittagong. The bus seemed well maintained, well decorated for an overnight journey. 

I sat back and made the sitting comfortable with the seat leaning adjustment. The journey didn't take long to start since the timing was already disrupted by the delay. The moment the bus started to move, I thought of having a good night's sleep. Only if I had known what the journey was gonna be like.

Once the bus hit the main highway, I don't remember a second when I got to close my eyes. The experience of the driver flourished with the way he handled the bus in the rushing of many other trucks and cars. Though my awakened state wouldn't stop an accident if it occurred, it seemed comforting to stay awake rather than sleeping without a worry.

I did get some sleep at the end around when we were just 1 hour away from reaching Teknaf. The view of the winter stands out from any other season's morning as it wraps itself with the fog's blanket. We got down the bus and took a good look around us. 

Everything screamed a typical winter morning: the wood burning at the side of the road, freshly cooked eggs and rotis from the roadside restaurants. 





The time passed at a glimpse and we were already boarding on the cruise ship to the Saint Martin. The way to the ship may have been a long one but surely not tiring. The view couldn't stop me from capturing the hue of the morning yet again keeping the fog around it close. The mist turned into droplets of water and sprinkled on the leaves that surrounded us.






Another 2 hour journey went by real quick and we reached the Island, Saint Martin. The first impression after reaching was not impressive, crowded and poorly managed traffic. 

The fare for a 10 minutes ride was 500, which baffled me alot. But they are not to be blamed since the cost of fuels and everything was costly. 

Our traveling started at around 6pm when the outside lit up with different colours. The night was colder than the morning. It felt more like a desert where the morning is hotter than ever and night is cold. I found it interesting. 

There were varieties of stuff for tourists to purchase. I got to see fishes that are only available there in Saint Martin. 



Restaurants' attraction phrases for customers were the mention of having the facility of doing coral reef fish barbeque. Craze for fish was greater than any other meat there. 

The journey didn't start at night but the next day. The breakfast was nothing special, just eggs, rotis and a cup of tea. We planned to make a visit to the famous 'Chera Dwip'. We were offered to take a ride there but the fare was nearly more than 1000 which made us turn down the suggestion. 




We decided to walk. The first half of the walk was through the villages of Saint Martin. It seemed like a walk through a normal village so a change took place: we took the seashore pathway.





It did cost us some cramps and blisters, but truly a walk to remember. After some time, we sat down under the shed of a tin surrounded by palm and coconut trees. This was probably one of the moments I will remember for sure, maybe for the desperation of wanting to take a rest. 











What made me realize why we made this trip was when I reached the Chera Dwip, the end of Bangladesh border on the southernmost side. The water met the rocky bed with tiny fishes making their travels in between the sea weeds. 







The day slowly ended as we travelled to our hotel while enjoying the sweet breeze of the evening. We couldn't make it to lunch but the walk did feed us with the satisfaction that's quite tough to express if one doesn't experience it themselves. Words aren't enough to capture the beauty of it hence, the pictures ;)












Name: Rehnuma Amzad Cathie
Student_ID: 22299233
Section: 11

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Magician Leo

 THE MAGICIAN LEO That little boy with magic in his legs started his journey as a random person and emerged from nothing to something. Here's the story of the magician,the "Greatest Of All Times" - Lionel Andrés Messi.  Messi was born in Argentina and brought up to Spain at an early age and so he could choose Spain as his national team,but his immense patriotism pushed him to play for Argentina. In the early days,he was diagnosed with a growth hormone disorder for which there were some extra physical problems that needed costly treatment that his family couldn't afford. From his early childhood,he showed his magic with football and he was always good at it since day 1. At the age of 13,FC Barcelona reached towards him and proposed that,they would pay the financial benefits for his disease if he could play for them. Then 'La Masia' took him in and voila! The rest is all known to us. He earned the most prestigious award of football "Ballon D'or" 4 ...
Read more
Pens Pens are something I was always fascinated about. From my young age I collected pens. I don't know why but every time I saw a new pen even if it was a different color, I was simply amazed. Years later, obviously after seeing a lot of pens I've finally been able to put a grip on my amusement and have turned pen collecting a hobby. Pens basically existed for a long time before modern ball point pens people used to write with fountain pens and before that there was ink dips. Ink dips are a lot different than regular fountain pens. These are basically sharp pointy sticks people used to directly dip in ink tanks and then write. But don't think these sticks are just simple sticks. These sticks are made of glass or other hard materials and craftsman delicately crafted tiny passage ways to make the dipped ink flow more evenly. But as you have guessed, these things are a part of Sir Isaac Newton's era and poor people couldn't afford them, then what did the poor people u...
Read more

How I became a gamer

Image
  How I became a gamer Can you tell me what is game? “Game”, a very popular and a favorite thing to everyone as it gives joy and enjoyment. Rather it can be played at field or using the technology which is addressed by “Computer Games”. Computer games is famous from a long time. Now it’s been millions and millions games created in this community. There are various platforms for gaming such as PC games, Play stations, X-box even Nintendo etc. There are different types of games of different genre.   Back story from childhood I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember. I have always loved playing video games, and the feeling of being able to control a character and to explore a virtual world was something that was always exciting to me.   Growing up, I was always playing games with my friends. We would take turns playing games, swapping out controllers and picking up new games whenever we could. We would play games like Mario, Sonic and Pokémon, and we w...
Read more