A Long Way To Go: A Travelling Story (2015)

Chapter 7

After that, Saiful came towards us-the ladies. He announced that we may go to the temples as a tourist attraction. Adreeta called me.

She said “Do you know where Coxes Bazaar was originated?”

I replied “I knew but I want to know more”.

She said “During the Sepoy Mutiny, the British gentleman or may be a viceroy named it Coxes Bazaar. We are going to one of the temples where Gautama Buddha stayed in”.

I replied “Woah! I should see that”.

Therefore, we went to the temple where the stairs were long. The front was huge and two storied made of wood. The floors were slippery. We were careful. Then, we went inside the temple as Saiful was guiding us the historical aspects that Adreeta told me about. Therefore, we saw all the statues of Gautama Buddha. When we got down, we went to the backside. We saw a tree at the right side that people used to say that Buddha used to sit there and called it ‘tree of the wise’. Beside the tree, there were homes of the Buddhist monks.  In the front, we saw that it was the extension of the temple. We saw more of it. The statue of Buddha was as large as the room. What have we learnt is to respect the religions.

We directly went to the Inani Beach. There were stones but if we walk into the waves of the sea, we almost get rid of the stones. The boys were playing volleyball as we girls were capturing selfies. When we were about to go to the changing room, we saw that Iliyas fell down and injured his leg as he was bumped into the stone. Maisha, Sameen and Saiful took him to the change room. Then Maisha put the bandage on his leg.  After that, we went back to a highway restaurant. It was one of the famous restaurants.  The service was a little poor because, their cooking process was a little slow. The food was tasty and the best one was the beef and the creamy potato smash.

The fish was tastier than the smash. I went to photograph the beach opposite the restaurant. There were swimming dogs, flying birds and the sea was waving. The sunset was unusual that if it was falling down towards the sea. The nature was beautiful as if no one understands. The girls were also doing their photographs, as Iliyas was speaking on the phone, Sameen was videoing the nature and Saiful was sitting in the laptop, writing poems on the social networking sites and blogs.

After we were done with photographing, we went back to the hotel. It was quite hectic that I couldn’t talk to the whisperer. Another day, we packed our bags. We directly went to the mountainous road- Bandarban. It means the forest of the monkeys. I heard that the people from the tribe were allergic to photographs because they had the clash between the Bengalis and the tribes.  Aargh! What a horrible experience to both of us! We should show our humanity to that.

After that, we went to a large guest house situated inside the mountains. We all thought of ghost stories because some of the mountainous areas were haunted. She told me the tale of the ghost from the back of the mountainous guest house:

“Probably 95 years back, a solicitor came to the guest house given by the government. Therefore, a flower seller named Lolita came to sell the flowers to the solicitor. As the solicitor was handsome, her obsession grew and used to stalk him and gives him letter from the window. Therefore, the solicitor rejected her, the girl killed herself in the guest house in front of the solicitor but he could not able to save her due to her stubbornness. Now her spirit is killing the people who wanted to stay in the guest house”.

We were so scared about it that, we felt that we shouldn’t go to the haunted house. I felt that the whisperer told me that it was the jinns who controlled the guest house to protect it: according to the rules of the religion there are two kinds of creatures- the visible and the invisible.  Anyways, I didn’t believe in that, as Adreeta announced that we cannot go to the Nilgiri in the cold weather but by tomorrow we would be going. We were excited about it. The description that the boys mentioned was unusual. Hope it would be the best trip ever. Then we went to sleep. As the breeze was heavier we felt slightly calm.  The blankets were more comfortable than the breeze.

After that, the whisperer gave me a message. He said that he would be coming after few weeks. I was so excited that he would soon reveal the answers to the questions. Furthermore, he said that Haroon’s back on track. The question is if he’s Haroon or not? If he comes here, what would be coming to an end? The trip, I hope would be wonderful.