In this busy life, the desire to sniff a little free wind is always at the forefront of our minds. For this mission, we, a group of students of Department of Archaeology, Cumilla University, arranged a day-long tour to Chandranath Pahar and Guliakhali Sea Beach in Sitakunda, Chattogram.
At first, we went to Cumilla railway station at 4am for boarding the train. We took the Chittagong mail train straight to Sitakunda. After about 3 hours, we reached Sitakunda railway station. We had our breakfast and started our journey to Chandranath Pahar via CNG.
The Chandranath Temple is situated at the top of Chandranath Pahar. The hill is 1,152 feet high and holds the position of the highest peak in Chittagong district. It is the part of Sitakunda Hills.
The Chandranath Temple is a famous 'Shakti Peeth'. Shakti Peeth is a holy site for pilgrimage for the Hindu community. As per Hindu sacred texts, the right arm of goddess Sati had fallen, marking it as a shrine to the goddess. Chandranath Temple is a major pilgrimage site for Hindu religious people. Its old name was "Sitakunda Temple".
At 8:30am, we started climbing on the Chandranath hills. along with this temple, we also took tours of other sites such as Barabazar Puja Mandap, Kramdeshwari Kali Mandir, Bholanand Giri Seva Shram, Kachari Bari, Shani Thakur Bhari, and Premtala.
We also visited Sri Sri Loknath Brahmachari Seva Ashram, Sri Ramkrishna Seva Ashram, Girish Dharmashala, Dol Chautar, Saha Pilgrim Nivas, Tirtha Guru Mohant Astana, Vivekananda Smriti Panchabati, Jagannath Ashram, Srikrishna Mandir, Mahasamanshanbhani Temple, Swayambhunath, Jagannath Temple, Birupakkha Temple, Annapurna temple and so on.
The second highest peak of Chattogram is the 'Rajbari Tila, standing at 889 feet and third is the 'Sajithala Tila', standing at 801 feet.
After we had climbed down from Chandranath Temple, we rested for a while before walking down to Guliakhali Beach. We walked to Sitakunda Bazar and looked around for a little while.
Guliakhali beach is one of the least known beaches in Bangladesh. It is quite different from other beaches I have visited. It is also known as Muradpur Beach. It stretches for 19.7 miles to the southeast of Chattogram.
It took us about an hour to reach the beach because we covered almost 7.7 kilometres. There is another route to the beach from Sitakunda Bazaar, named Beri Beri Road, but it is little more in distance - about 10 kilometres.
There was only one tea stall on the beach. The beach was serene and clean. The cool breeze smelling like seawater touched our skin and soothed us in no time. We forgot the pain of our journey.
Have you ever seen a beach with greenery? Guliakhali Beach is green instead of sandy, because of the mangrove forests lining it. Before you go to the beach, you will have to walk through the beautiful forest. If you're lucky, you would be able to glimpse some deer as you pass by. The locals told us so.
At around 1pm, we reached the beach, through the forest no less. The tide was up and going. I felt like I was back in the Sundarbans. As I walked through the bed of green grass, I was surprised to see that it just stretched out to the sandy beach and soon, into the waves of the sea.
Finally, we came back to Sitakunda Bazaar and took the launch at 3pm. Our day-long tour had come to an end. We packed up to go to Sitakunda station to take our train back to Cumilla University.
Really, the place was wonderful, and we will remember the day for a long time.
The writer is a travel enthusiast
