Comilla

It been a while, but I am trying to catch up. We took a day trip out to Comilla!

This is a city about an hour and a half from Dhaka, without traffic. With traffic, the story changes. Anyway, great opportunity to get out of the Mega City and see something on a nice weekend.

We went with the Munteanu's Travel, a group we hadn’t used before, because I had not discovered my hidden talents for organizing tours.

Big bus, big group.

One of reasons to visit Comilla is to see the Maynamati War Cemetery. It’s strange to think about WWII being fought here in Bangladesh, but the cemetery exists as a result of the Allied Forces being based in the region in an effort to stop the Japanese invading India via Burma during WW II. Interestingly there are even 24 Japanese buried here. 

We continued on to the ruins at Mainamati. The first stop was at an ancient Buddhist monastery called Salban Vihara. To me, the site is interesting because it shows the long and impressive influence of Buddhism in Bangladesh. Now Buddhists make up only a fraction of a percent of the population.

After all any  chance to escape the smog of Dhaka for the natural green of the countryside is a God given gift ! Just being on the road and watching the rural landscape is a nice change of pace.