Tales of Local Travelers
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Explore with A & K (Arif & Kaniz)
Thoughts from a
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Food for the soul
“We love to travel because we believe travelling is the ultimate food for our soul.
Whatever money we make for satisfying our stomach or life, ultimately we satisfy our heart by travelling to different places and being close to the nature. Travelling helps to rejuvenate the human inside out. When you travel you meet different people which helps you look at life from different perspectives. It gives us the opportunity to know about a city, country, culture, food and most importantly different human beings. Another point is, travelling allows us to be disconnected from our normal life and regular routine in the meantime and helps us think about life from out of the box.”
Nepal through our eyes:
“After the Nepal plane crash, it was a completely scary 1:30 hrs journey to Tri
Bhuban International Airport from Dhaka. But when we safely landed, the magic
started.
As a couple traveller of Bangladesh “Explore with A & K” always prefers to visit almost all of the tourist attractions in a city. We visit places, eat traditional food and mingle with local people. Thamel is the area which is full of hotels, local shops and cafes. Nepali traditional food “Thukpa’’ became our favourite breakfast with local bread and egg. We visited Durber Square, Swayambhunath Stupa and spent a wonderful evening in Garden of Dreams which is a natural park inside the main city. We went to the ancient city of Nepal which is called Bhaktapur and saw the ancient heritage of Nepal.
Nepal is always an exciting destination because of the Himalaya. Any traveller would love to see the Himalayan Range at least once when they are in Nepal. We went to Nagarkoat but unfortunately it was so cloudy and foggy so we couldn’t see anything rather enjoyed our time in an ‘adda’ with Indian, Pakistani and British travellers.
As we missed the Sunrise and Himalayan Range we decided to go to Pokhara that evening, spontaneously. We hopped on a microbus full of local people going to different destinations. By then we socialized with some of them and tried to make new friends so we can anticipate what any new obstacles. After an hour we found Nepal’s road is safe and people are ready to help any time.
We reached there at 1 am and felt very safe as there were taxis waiting at the bus station. It was a moonlit night and we had a spectacular view of the mountains of Nepal. The next morning we went to Sarangkoat and finally we got the view of the great Himalayan Range. We end our trip by hiking to World Peace Pagoda and visiting Phewa Lake, Tal Barahi Temple, Devi’s Fall and Guptewshar Mahadev’s Cave in Pokhara.”
A message to the readers:
“Travelling abroad is always a bit challenging than travelling within the
country. Before travelling abroad you should have a clear idea about your trip
pattern whether it’s a pleasure trip or an adventurous trip, and then plan
accordingly. In terms of choosing the places you wish to visit, please surf the
internet beforehand. There are plenty of places in a city or country but as a
traveller you can’t visit all within 2/3 days. So, find out the most appealing
places you wish to visit and use google maps for planning each day.
As a traveller, try to go to the museum, restaurants which will give you the essence of a city or country. Try to have their traditional foods, street foods and mingle with the people and exchange views.
After traveling to a few countries, we strongly believe everyone should travel at least twice a year. It will renew their life and recharge the body and soul.”
Md. Ebrahim Hossain’s Shillong Expedition
For the love of travel:
Traveling to a new place requires mass information about the place and culture. I get a lot of information from the “Travellers of Bangladesh” group. Usually, a tour requires a proper itinerary plan and I set my whole tour plan from this group because everybody shares there experience here. I think “Travellers of Bangladesh” is a good platform for tour lovers. I love meeting new people, learning new cultures and traveling is the medium of it to me. Usually, when I travel with a tourism agency with their tour event, I meet a lot of unknown people there and we make friendships. When I visit a new place, I come to know about the regions culture, occupation and, etc. It enriches my knowledge about the world. And as well as traveling refreshes my mind. A refreshed mind always boost up the speed of work. I think everybody should take a break from their regular life and travel to new places at regular intervals.
A quick trip to Shillong
A few days ago I went to Shillong (Meghalaya, India) through Dawki border, Sylhet. It was my first International tour. I knew nothing about VISA processing, travel tax, Dollar endorsement, etc. It was a tough job to collect all that information alone. But my colleagues, friends and of course the “Travellers of Bangladesh” group helped me a lot. After entering India, it took a lot of time to manage a car from Dawki bazar, everybody was charging a lot. We were five people all together and hired a car finally. But the driver was a local person and he didn’t know Hindi, Bengali or even English. So it was difficult to communicate with him. But the next day was different; we found a driver who knows all those languages and he was a smart guy also. We went to Cherapunji with him and really it is the best place I have ever seen in my life till date. The clouds were floating around us, I was amused by seeing the beautiful waterfalls, mountains and even the beautiful zigzag roads. The food was much cheaper there and we tried different traditional food. People were very friendly with us, whenever we asked them anything, they helped us with cordial cooperation. I really liked the place and I hope to travel to Shillong again.
A few days ago I went to Shillong (Meghalaya, India) through Dawki border, Sylhet. It was my first International tour. I knew nothing about VISA processing, travel tax, Dollar endorsement, etc. It was a tough job to collect all that information alone. But my colleagues, friends and of course the “Travellers of Bangladesh” group helped me a lot. After entering India, it took a lot of time to manage a car from Dawki bazar, everybody was charging a lot. We were five people all together and hired a car finally. But the driver was a local person and he didn’t know Hindi, Bengali or even English. So it was difficult to communicate with him. But the next day was different; we found a driver who knows all those languages and he was a smart guy also. We went to Cherapunji with him and really it is the best place I have ever seen in my life till date. The clouds were floating around us, I was amused by seeing the beautiful waterfalls, mountains and even the beautiful zigzag roads. The food was much cheaper there and we tried different traditional food. People were very friendly with us, whenever we asked them anything, they helped us with cordial cooperation. I really liked the place and I hope to travel to Shillong again.
A message to the readers:
Make a detail tour plan before the journey starts. And when you go abroad, and take some extra money with you because you never know when an emergency situation might take place.
Tamrin Afroz Zilani
Why traveling is crucial for the mind
I started traveling back in 2017 with a solo trip abroad. Since then I have been hooked onto traveling. In 2018 I have been on 13 tours within the country and abroad. Traveling is something that I love from the core of my heart. I am a student of architecture, and being an architecture student you always have the pressure of your study. But still, whenever I feel like I am dying underneath the pressure of submission, jury, assignments, midterms and I need an escape, I go for a tour whether it is only for 2 days. I feel like when I travel I am breathing, that much I love traveling. There are so many benefits of traveling, it helps me to release stress, the greenery, blue skies, and beautiful landscapes helps me to relax my mind. Through traveling I have learned the adaptability of any situation, how to stay calm and take an instant decision at the time of crisis, believing in my own gut feeling and also it boosted my self- confident.
Tamrin’s rollercoaster journey
So, I started traveling on a solo trip, from Bangladesh to Rwanda in the middle of 2017. However, it was mainly for a conference and workshop. That was the first time I traveled alone, without family and friends. When I was 12 years old in 2010, I went camping in Japan and Malaysia, which was without my family but it was with a group of people whom I knew. Traveling solo abroad for the first time, after becoming an adult at the age of 19 was an amazing experience and full of hardships and wonders. After that, I traveled to India with a group of 4 people in total, at the end of 2017. It was a 10-day backpack trip, targeting 8 cities of India: Mumbai, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi, and Kolkata. So, here is a funny story, we reached Kolkata airport and from Kolkata, we were supposed to catch our next flight to Mumbai, but we missed it! The first day of the trip already having bad buzz! We handled the situation and caught the next flight to Mumbai. Our strategy was to explore the city the whole day and at 10/11 pm take a bus or train for the next city. We took a hotel for a few hours in 3 or 4 destinations for resting and shower. But in those cities we didn’t take a hotel we used to change and freshen up in the bus stand or train station! Yes, it was a hell of experience. One night we were coming from Ahmedabad to Udaipur and we reached Udaipur at 4.00 am in the morning. We were 4 people, after dropping two of us, the bus started moving and 2 of us were still inside. We only had one sim with us, which was carried by the one who was on the bus. Me and one of my partner in a road of Udaipur at 4.00 am in the morning, shivering in cold, didn’t have any sim cards, and didn’t even know the number we had, standing clueless, didn’t know what to do or where to go! So we started walking towards the direction of the bus went. After walking for 5 minutes, we saw 2 people were coming from the opposite side. When we came close oh! That’s the other two partners of ours. Lesson learned! There are a lot of more stories like these full of joy and lessons for the next trips.
After that, I started exploring within my country because there are so many wonderful places in Bangladesh. I started with Nijhum Dip. Then, I went to Sajek, Bandarban Specifically Boga Lake, Rajshahi, and Chittagong twice. I went to Sylhet 3 times in 2018 to enjoy Tanguar haor, Ratargul swamp forest, and Bichanakandi. For abroad trip I went to Nepal and Zambia in 2018, both were solo trips again. 2018 is one the memorable year of my life only because of different wonderful travel destinations. In 2019 I started with Saint Martin. And the last one was a solo trip to Norway in March. Another amazing experience that I cannot express in words. I enjoyed snowing for the first time in my life! I don’t know where I will go next, let destiny decided that.
Advice to traveler noobs:
There are different kinds of travelers, some like budget friendly traveling, some people want to spend their vacations in luxury. Some like to travel alone, some within a group, some people may like to enjoy Mother Nature, where some want to enjoy heritage sites. Preferences vary from person to person. I can suggest boring things like submitting visa papers properly, booking air tickets as early as possible to get it at a cheap price. But come on we all know these! But I would say, whenever you are traveling try to enjoy that moment in your life, that calmness that thrill, even the stupidest mistakes. Especially when you are traveling alone, trust your gut feeling, because that’s the best friend you will get at that moment. Every moment has something to teach you when you are traveling.
