Sundarbans(1)

Sundarbans…….the largest Mangrove forest, the home of royal Bengal tiger.

It is one of the main tourist attractions in Bangladesh.

I have been in 2 nights 3 days Sundarbans tour operated by Bengali Tours.
So, let’s explore Sundarbans.

From Dhaka to Sundarbans, the gate city is Khulna.

You can fly from Dhaka to Jossore, and take bus to Khulna about 2 hours.

Or, you can take bus…….it takes....long time.
10 hours? Depends.

The tour starts in the early morning, so you have to be in Khulna the day before.

Meeting point is Rupsha ghat at 6am and vessel starts at 7am from the port.

This is the vessel Bengal Tours has. (for 46 people maximum)

Participants are Bangladeshi, Italian, Australian, Canadian, American, British and we Japanese.
Multi-national group.
But let's me introduce facility at first.
This is twin cabin.

Simple, but clean.
(Luckily, I got this room only for me, so spread things on one of beds :P)
There is fan, but it works only when generator works.
It was actually impossible to stay in cabin during the day.

You don't have to worry to find your room.
There is name plate on your door.

Though there might be mistake....."SHIORIE"!
Still possible to understand whose room it is.

Wow, "& FRIEND".......but still possible to find your room.

One thing which surprised me is that no one locks their room.
When we dropped our bag in cabin, we asked a guide to give key.
He said
"oh......we can give key, but no one would use it. It's safe on the vessel".

He was right.
No one locks their room and even keeps the door open.
We all felt safe, and it was. Impressive.

OK, let me continue.

Shared bathroom.
It was clearn....though you may sometimes find a guy getting out from female bathroom.
You don't get hot water(don't expect in jungle!), but bathroom and shower were clean and I heard no foreigner complained.
It was good.

The first floor has dining space.

Drinking water is available through the tour.

Deck is also nice.
People come to deck and go during the tour.
Especially nice to spend time at night seeing moon on the deck.
There were some mattress, but people directly sit on the floor.
All the vessels are cleaned 6 times a day.

・・・・・・・・・・

7am, vessel started as scheduled.

heading inside of Sundarbans, I was excited.

3 Days tour started....but details of tour is from next article.