Our team just returned from a trip to the Hill Tracts in southern Bangladesh, near the Myanmar border. For us, the trip started at 5:15 a.m. on Tuesday, when we left our house in Mymensingh, to catch the first bus to Dhaka. Here is Austin, holding Riley, as Riley's seat held our luggage. It took 4 hours till we got to Austin's parents place, where we hung out for the day. Then we caught another bus at 11 p.m., this time with all the expatriates on our team, and began the long haul south. It was filled with many stops, honks, close calls and little sleep. The children slept well, which made things more bearable. Around 7 a.m. we foreigners had to all get off and sign many papers at the check point. There has been some trouble in the area and they want to make sure that everyone who goes in also comes out again. We finally got to the resort and enjoyed a lovely breakfast and a view of the hills. After living in flat country, it was very refreshing.
The boys enjoyed the freedom of being outdoors and explored the many paths. They soon made friends with the dog, who they named Speedy.
The highlight for them was a hike to the river, mostly down, down, down. Since it is the dry season, the water was shallow enough for most of them to walk all the way across.
Our guide told us it was market day and we saw many boats coming through, often with a pile of cabbages on them.
Everywhere we went, we had to have a guide as well as 3 armed police. I don't think we were under any real danger, but as it was government policy, we went along with it. Here you can see one of them, as the boat is taking us upriver after our swim. From there we caught a jeep to take us back up to the resort, rightly named Hillside Resort.
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