Back to Feni and Hotel Midnight - Bangladesh + India x 2 - CycleBlaze

November 12, 2010

Back to Feni and Hotel Midnight

a bus ride

The morning call to prayer wakes me at I guess 5:00 and you might think that's a pain, but what's good about it here is that it's always done live - no CD player or tape - so each time you hear it the voice is different, the tone more personal. It just sounds better.

The ceiling fan isn't spinning around in my windowless room, so I know the power is out. An hour later I'm up, fumbling around with my LED in the darkness, getting outside into the corridor to look out from a balcony to see that the sky is a blanket of misty grey and feel the temperature is cool in a nice sort of way. Perhaps like yesterday, it'll all burn off again as the day progresses. The heat has gone, but I reckon it'll be back shortly.

Side street of Khargrachari
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I'm ready for breakfast. Richard should be with me any minute, then I'll be off. (A knock on the door.)

We go to the place where I had dinner last night and have the usual - nan bread, freshly baked and hot, straight out of the oven. We use it to scoop up the cooked veg and it's about 9 by the time I get back to my hotel's small room, pack my panniers, again using my LED, before setting off.

Where will I end up today? Good question. Well, there's a small road heading to Feni, but it's about 100 km according to a young guy at this hotel. I believe him. Going back to Chittagong doesn't appeal and Feni is worth a try.

The damp greyness is already dissipating and by the time I've reached the edge of the town and the turnoff for Feni, which is the wide road leading to Chittagong. It's not busy at all - in fact it's quiet.

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There are swathes of blue sky above and I photograph some people walking through a crop that looks ready to harvest. The road has started to rise and it then climbs and climbs. For seven kilometers it goes on, with me occasionally walking, dripping sweat in the heat and humidity with my shirt drenched. The incline is 20 percent in many places. 

I take a snap once I get a clear view of where I've come from, a parting in the trees allowing a clear view. It looks a long way down from here, the horizon is miles away. Near to what I presume to be the top, I treat myself to a couple of bottles of mango juice and cool down. 

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There are tribal people walking around and I spot one older man with a particularly interesting face and ask permission to take his photo - he's more than happy to oblige.

Dark clouds have formed and when I reach the crest proper, rain drops start splattering on the tarmac, and it seems like a good idea to take shelter in a bamboo hut by the roadside that serves tea and snacks. 

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Inside  I buy a packet of potato crisps and try to chat with the handful of people and then the woman owner arrives. She soon lights up a huge bamboo pipe and puffs away and noticeably chills out and it's then she lets me take a photo, seeming particularly pleased with the result when I show her it on the camera's LCD.

Although the air is still damp and there are patches are dark clouds hovering above - it looks like the rain has blown over, so I set off as there's a long way to go and it's already taken me ages to get this far - only 11 km. There's more than a hundred still left to ride and they'll be up and down, for sure.

On the descent the rain returns and so I take cover in another bamboo hut/tea shop, but this time there's an English speaker present, some kind of social worker who helps the Hill Tribes. He knows Richard. Small world! He says this high road is 3,500 metres, but guess he means 3,500 feet, which is still pretty high. No wonder I feel knackered.

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I get treated to sweet tea, served in a small cup, and take a snap of a young mother and her infant son before leaving. She looks about 16 years old. The men reckon it's still well over 100 km to Feni.

I'm really getting nowhere fast as the road climbs and drops for a few hours. The countryside is all hills and is extra verdant after the light rain. In a small town full of young boys in white cotton caps gather around me and do the same in a couple of other places.

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By 2:00 I've reached the junction where the road forks - Chittagong or Feni. There's a bus parked and I ask about its destination and get told Feni and the fare is 120 taka and it'll take two or more hours to get there, so I think about it for a split second and know that I can never ride the 70-odd  kilometers from here that'll be up and down and decide riding is over for today. 

My bike gets tied to the roof and the bus rattles off down the road a few minutes later.

The road is the same, up and down in long waves and it would take me a long time to ride it and never in a million years would I have got to Feni in daylight: the bus takes two and a half hours and the last part of the trip is up the busy N1 Highway, a particularly stressful 30 minutes with drivers of trucks and buses attempting to overtake on the two-lane tarmac route, swerving in and out with only inches to spare. Terrible.

Gratefully off in Feni, my bike has suffered a bit on the bumpy ride through the hills - there were times when I left my seat. The Brooks saddle has a nasty gouge on it; my computer holder looks as though it might be broken.

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I ride down Feni's main street together with hoards of rickshaws and chugging CNGs towards Hotel Midnight in the late afternoon sunlight, in need of a good wash and a lie-down.

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 462 km (287 miles)

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