Dhaka to Darjeeling

To make our time all the more memorable in Bangladesh, we tried to include as many different transports on our trip to the northern border. Well, we didn't try....it just so happened that way. We tried to arrange a luxury bus that would take us straight through to the city across the Indian border, but it was sold out. So we turned up at the bus station with plans of catching the next bus heading up towards the border. The bus stations in Dhaka are an experience in themselves. There are several bus stations that serve different regions of the country, so the first task is figuring out which bus station you even need. The bus stations aren't so much stations as a mass of busses and people strung out along the side of a busy road. So, we hopped out of the autorickshaw and just started asking everyone 'Rangpur?' People started pointing off in one direction. We would walk a while, inquire again and continue to follow the direction of the pointing fingers. Then we arrive at a bus and everyone is yelling for us to buy the tickets and jump on as if the bus will pull off momentarily, and we might just miss it if we don't move quickly enough. We leap onto our local bus, knowing we are in for a long journey, as all the passengers on the bus crane their necks to catch a glimpse of us. The fellow next to Tim was staring open-mouthed at the alien sitting next to him. We proceed to sit there for an hour and a half waiting for the bus to fill to maximum capacity before we set out on our 9 hour journey. (I was told by the fellow selling us the ticket it would take merely 6 hours...perhaps he was fearful that we would look for another bus if he told us how many stops it was going to make!) The nine hours slipped past as we wove our way past rice paddies, smoke stacks of brick factories, and small villages strung along the roads. It was quite late by the time we arrived in Rangpur and were dumped off the bus on the side of the road. Early the next morning we set out to continue our travels. We hopped on a minibus just as it was taking off to make our way to the border. At some point the bus stopped near a river crossing and shut off the motor. We waited and waited, and then realized that we were waiting for a train to come through, as the motor traffic also uses the railway bridge to cross the river. The train chugged past, with a pack of people hugging the roof of the train car so that they could clear the top of the bridge just above their backs. After the train past, we lumbered across the creaking bridge and continued to a town still 12 km from the border. We hopped on a cycle rickshaw, and the narrow-framed man pumped away all the way to the border along the dirt road. On the other side of the border, just two more bus rides and finally a jeep ride brought us up to the hill station of Darjeeling at 7000 ft above the very sea level we began our journey at. Three hours in a shared jeep winding up hairpin curves in the chilly evening air, and we safely arrive in Darjeeling. We were so happy to see the town and breath the cool, fresh air.