This is the fifth part of a series of articles about the author’s trip to Keokradong.
Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.
Read Part III here.
Read Part IV here.
The twelve of us completed our mission. We had reached the peak of Keokradong. We celebrated. We clicked photos for taking back home. It was now time to trace our steps back to where we started. This was the beginning of the end.
We got down from the peak and walked back to the army check-post. Now began the act of clearing our names. We were to remove our names from each of the registers where we signed. Later, we went back to our cottage to claim our bags, sticks, and covered sandals. We started on our journey down Keokradong at roughly 10 AM.
The sun was shining bright, and gravity was finally in our favor. We were covering more ground. By 11, we were at Darjeeling Para.
We stopped at another store. The best thing about this store was that they had seating facilities in their front yard. The store was one out of a children’s picture book: a thatched hut with one square window on the right and a long yard. I, along with four others, chose to sit outside. We had a late breakfast of khichuri, aloo-bhorta, scrambled eggs, gourd, and dal. We decided to rest there till long, and the shop-owners did not mind. We were back on the road by 1 PM.
We were soon back at the third slope. We took fewer stops. We passed it and walked until we were at the second one.
The second slope, as we just realized, is a very twisted path. It took us prudent navigation on both limbs and our stick to cross this one. The road is also slippery in places. People don’t usually die here, but you can be left with bruises and a fracture.
We crossed the second slope and then walked a long way onto a tourist shelter. We were more wary of the importance of tourist shelters now. We stopped for lemonades at each shelter this time. We then walked till the last slope and crossed that pretty quickly too.
After the last slope, we noticed rocks and streams of clear water. We deduced that we had been nearing Chingri. We washed our feet in the cool water. We then saw a steep rocky slope into a bridge. We recognized the bridge. We were already at the foot of Chingri.
We did not stop for long at Chingri. We washed our hands and feet and started walking up. We got so used to walking down; our joints ached as we had to walk upwards. The thought of our journey coming to an end had not yet sunk in. We were just happy that we were coming out of these roads and could rest our legs after two days. We went up and down until we were back on the road to Boga Lake. Our Chander-gari had already been waiting for us. We hopped on, and the car carried us back to Boga Lake to clear our names from there.
We were at Boga Lake by 3. The local office had kept our luggage for safekeeping. We got them back and got changed. We tossed our sandals and put on our sneakers. We then got back in the car.
En route to Ruma Bazar, a tragedy happened. It started to rain.
We skipped about looking for polybags to stash our cellphones and wallets. We saved our phones. However, our fresh set of clothes was now drenched. The raindrops crashing against our bodies at full speed felt like pellets of ice piercing into our skin. We could not cover our vehicle either, as there were too many passengers.
We could not dry ourselves at Ruma Bazar. Those of us who did not have a change of clothes went shopping. Those of us that did went shopping for trinkets or shawls. I bought two shawls for BDT 700.00 as gifts. We then had a “layer-poultry” package at one of the hotels that cost us BDT 120.00. At around 3:30 PM, we were done with everything at Ruma Bazar, and we got back on the vehicle. My friend and I decided to ride shotgun. It was easy because our guide and we parted ways from Ruma Bazar. The front seat of a Chander-gari is surprisingly spacious. The rest got to sit under a canopy because of us.
Our car stopped one last time near the Ruma Sadar. The place had a small market, a hotel-cum-tong, and the Sadar office. It was 7 PM, and the driver warned us we weren’t going to stop after this. We got into dry clothes and then had tea and snacks at the hotel. We rested till 7:30. We traded seats with others from the back. Then we started again. We did not stop till we were back in Bandarban. It was 8 o’clock. We paid our chauffeur and then went into our bus counter. We skipped our luggage and took shifts to go out for dinner.
It had been long since we last had parathas (wheat bread). We ordered two large parathas and beef, for which they charged us BDT 160.00. Our bus would soon start loading within 8:45 PM. We got on. And with that, our journey had come to an end.
We were all down and trying to keep the thought of returning to our daily lives off our minds. We did not realize that although the movie ended, the post-credits did not. Two people started shouting as a young man boarded our bus from Thanchi. We later found out that the young man posed as a solo traveler and joined another party of tourists. He then stole a bunch of drones, Digital SLRs, and cash and then ran away. The party members gathered intel and found out the thief was returning to Dhaka that night. They found out all buses bound for Dhaka and planted two people in each of them. We were lucky that the thief chose to get on our bus. The two campers came out of hiding and escorted the man out of the vehicle.
Later on, we were stopped at Chattogram by the tourist police. From then on, the route was pretty straightforward. The roads were mostly crowded, and we reached Fokirapool at 7 AM.
Our journey was challenging, and now it was over. We toiled like crazy, but after each endeavor, we immediately felt like we had achieved something. We didn’t have an organizing committee handing out medals. We only had ourselves. And we felt like winners. I made a bunch of friends. And now, I am back to my monotonous life, typing this blog from the comfort of my air-cooler.