Explore the Sundarbans and return to Dhaka
We are now a team of 24 aboard the 85ft Sundarbans cruise ship M/V Kokilmoni. The Americans included 10 students in my class Bangladesh: Life on a Constructive Active Delta, as well as my teaching assistant and LSU’s Carol Wilson. We also have two professors and 8 students from Dhaka University. In Khulna, we were joined by Masud Rana, Carol’s field assistant. This is my 6th time traveling with Masood. We sailed south through the mangroves, watched deer and monkeys along the riverbank, and occasionally saw freshwater dolphins in the river.
We saw a lot of sika deer on the banks of the river.
We reached Katka, which is a great spot for an afternoon of scenery and wildlife. We took our first forest walk with our armed guards to watch over the tigers. We climbed the steps of the wooden pier, followed the boardwalk into the forest, and continued deeper into the forest above ground. We were passing through an area where storms had blown large amounts of sand inland, burying the mangroves’ aerial roots, or aerial roots, and killing them. In the forest, we saw many deer and monkeys, and a wild boar.
A large group of us disembarked at the pier in Katka for a forest walk. Stairs required due to 4m tide.
Bachchu arranged all the boat trips for us and acted as our guide through the forest.
We continue to the ruins of the salt industry that existed here hundreds of years ago. The extra 3 feet of height on the mound makes it a favorite spot for tigers at high tide. We continue through the forest, passing the remains of several salt kilns. The salt fills the evaporation ponds at spring high tide, allowing the brine to evaporate for 2 weeks until the next spring high tide. The brine is then placed in small tanks and evaporated in a kiln.
Kazi Matin and Bachchu explain the remains of salt kilns over 300 years old.
We came across a wild boar near a building destroyed by Cyclone Side.
We continue to the sea. The area was devastated by Hurricane Sidr in 2007. Coastal erosion exposed the first kiln. One of the jobs we did in 2015 was underwater at high tide. Its underwater is evidence of sinking coastal areas. A team of scientists estimates that the site is sinking at a rate of 4.1 millimeters per year, faster than sea levels are rising. There are broken pottery shards all around, and it is unclear whether the kiln we studied has been destroyed.
Rebecca on the Bay of Bengal beach near the salt kiln we built in 2015 and probably no longer exists.
Farther along the coast we saw forestry office buildings also destroyed by Hurricane Sidr. The cyclone killed more than 4,300 people in Bangladesh. New buildings and tourist improvements are now under construction. We went back to Kokilmoni to watch the sunset in the west. We looked out over the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean and knew our next landing point was more than 6,000 miles south in Antarctica.
Arif stands on the trunk of a large tree that was uprooted by the cyclone in 2007.
The next morning we repeated the silent boat ride. With a clear morning we saw more birds and deer. After breakfast, we embarked on our second long forest walk. The first part of the path follows an old sandy coastline and includes a tall tower used to observe the forest. Walking through the forest, we saw many dog paw prints, tiger tracks. We emerged on the beach and continued along it to observe the tracks of tigers, smaller feral cats, deer and wild boar in the sand. Wild boars leave large holes where they take root.
On a country boat rowed by Nasir as our second silent boat sails up the tidal channel. Carol, Tisha, Kakon, Emily, Solaiman and Masud sat in the front row.
Fresh pug tracks or tiger tracks appear in the mud along the banks.
The mudskipper we saw when we went to the river to see the tiger tracks. They are small fish that come ashore to escape predators at low tide, breathing water with their puffed cheeks.
At Tiger Point at the far end of the beach, our country boat picked us up for a short break at Kokilmoni before taking us to Egg Island. There used to be two islands here, Bird Island and Egg Island, but they are now merged into one. The islands emerged from the sea less than 50 years ago. They are a great place to watch the continuous change from bare sand to grass to shrubs, trees, swamps and mangroves. When we were last here, there were no tigers on the island, but now there are, so the guards don’t let us go too far inland. Instead, we swim on the beach before heading back to Kokilmoni for lunch.
We came ashore for our second forest walk and came across a baby monkey.
A pair of chestnut-headed bee-eaters seen from a tall watchtower during a walk.
Sadly our time in the Sundarbans is coming to an end. We spent the rest of the day sailing north through the mangroves, watching deer, monkeys, birds, wild boars and dolphins as the sun went down. We stopped for the night near the Sharankhola forest station where the guards left us. Carol and I have an RSET and GNSS station about 3 miles north of here.
Nicole, Ana, Emile and Zazo enjoy refreshing green coconuts on their way to Egg Island.
Simon, Brendan, Rebecca, Emily and Andysha relax on board as we head to our next stop.
The next morning we sailed north to a village I visited in 2015 with Chris Small. He saw in satellite imagery that tree cover around the area was increasing. The class project team he works with will interview people to find out why. The Climate Change and Migration Panel will also conduct interviews. I stayed with the rest of the group to study last year’s record-setting floods in Sylhet, northeastern Bangladesh. For them, it was an opportunity to learn more about rice cultivation in Bangladesh.
With the captain watching, I got to steer the Kokilmoni.
Mahfuz, Masud, Nico, Anam Carol, Zazoe, and I in front of a colorful school that doubles as a hurricane shelter. The first floor is open to flooding and there is a cattle ramp.
We found that although they could grow two rice crops a year, the farmers did not use groundwater for irrigation because the groundwater is salty. They use the monsoon rains and the other uses the river water. However, during the dry season in late winter, the river is too salty to use. As a result, most of the fields fell fallow during our visit. We do see watermelon crops in the distance because it requires less water and is more salt-tolerant. As part of the CEIP-1 project I was involved in, new high embankments were built a few years ago to protect them from flooding. Back in 2007, the Cyclone Sidr breached the old embankment, plunging the village into waist-deep water.
Masood interpreted for a farmer my students interviewed.
A family sits on a porch or on a high mud plinth of a large house. Flooding during Sidr 2007 nearly submerged the top of the plinth. Many families whose homes were flooded took refuge here. The front bag was full of mustard seeds they were sorting when we arrived.
While walking up and down, a bicycle-powered ice cream van passed; we bought ice cream for ourselves and all the kids who followed us. We also stopped for tea and refreshments before heading back to Kokilmoni.
Our last night at Kokilmoni, Tisha and Kakon gave many of us henna tattoos.
After returning to the boat for lunch, Kaz Martin needed to return to Dhaka. A few students and I took the speedboat with him to Morrelganj, where a car met him. We then returned to Kokilmoni and continued to Mongla via natural and man-made passages, turning back to the bus the next morning. But first we had our last dinner on the top deck and said goodbye to the 11 crew members.
The last group photo before we left Kokilmoni included the staff and the rest of us.
On our last long day, we prepared breakfast for Bagerhat. Here we visit the 60-domed stone mosque and its huge freshwater pool. Both were completed in the mid-1400s by Khanjahan, one of the early settlements that converted forests to rice fields. Dhaka is just four hours from there, thanks to the newly opened 6.5 km (4 mile) long Padma Bridge. I’ve watched it being built over the years as I took the 1.5-3 hour long ferry. It opened last year and this is the first time I’ve walked through it.
60 Landscape inside the Dome of the Rock completed in 1456. The stones for the pillars had to be imported from India.
We had time to visit Dhaka University, Department of Geology and Curzon Hall. Curzon Hall is the town hall built for the 1905 partition. It was repurposed for Dhaka University when protests led to the abolition of the Bengal Secession. After saying goodbye to our Bangladeshi friends, we continued past the Shahid Tower, a memorial to those killed during the language protests in 1952. East Pakistan at that time, Bengalis were fighting against Urdu, only Urdu was the language of Pakistan’s divided state. It is now commemorated as a National Language Day holiday celebrating the Bengali/Bengali language and the struggle for independence.
Some kids were fascinated by Brendan’s tattoos. Here, a boy is practicing his Roman alphabet skills by reading Brendan’s fingers.
We also drive past the Louis Kahn-designed Parliament House before arriving at Aarong, a clothing and craft store that supports local artisans, for some final shopping. Satisfied with a few hours of gift shopping, we had a nice dinner at my TA Aandishah parents’ apartment before heading to the airport. Carol and I are also saying goodbye here as we will be in Dhaka for a longer stay for a conference. I haven’t brought my students here in years because of COVID. It will be great to see how much it affects students in the US and Bangladesh. I’ll learn more in class on Thursday when we’ll discuss our favorite photo trips.
The Bangladesh Parliament Building designed by Louis Kahn.
Next to my class are Aandishah’s parents in their apartment. We had dinner there before heading to the airport.
