Shundorban translates to beautiful forest.. it is the largest mangrove forest, just an hour drive + hour boat ride away. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Jitrkvm8xZNwVU5QA?g_st=ic
In Mongla, we met Doyle’s from Gopalgonj, at Hotel Pashur. They were able to show us the learned way of going on this excursion, as it was our 1st time. We ate our packed lunch on the boat ride down. Just a hint of cool on the breezy boat ride.. pretty much perfect weather for the day ☀️
When we arrived, our boat captain took anything we’d brought along, to a secure place, as the monkeys are quite the thieves. We armed ourselves with sticks to keep monkeys at bay but we actually didn’t see so many. A very nice elevated walk, since this area floods, through the jungle. A couple of towers to climb for a bird’s eye view. After a couple hours of walking and getting quite warm, we were back at the dock. Just as we got settled onto our boat. A whole crowd of older school age children finished their Shundorban tour, and quickly gathered on the dock to get pictures of the boat load of white skinned people. It’s quite hard to keep a good attitude in those kind of situations but finally just try to pretend we are royalty instead of rare zoo animals🤦🏼♀️ We ended up taking an extra little excursion down a waterway into the depths of the forest after a guard in uniform with gun in hand plus another just good lookin Bangali😂took up residence on the front of the boat. The guard was on board because not just anybody is actually allowed down that waterway.. and the other Bangali? Ami jani na(I don’t know)
Anyways, this little extra excursion turned out to be about the most exciting part of the day! We saw several crocodiles in their natural habitat and came upon one especially Large one on the bank . The guess was that he was at least 12 feet long! A very ominous creature😳 And What do you know!???!!! They decide this huge croc needs to move and so the boat is headed to the bank! I am sitting on pins and needles feeling like this is a very unwise decision. The bank is bumped and I’m trying to figure out what my options are if the croc decides to come aboard or attacks🤯 The 🐊 slides into the water and swims away from the boat.. Huge sigh of relief!.. We have survived to tell the story! Come to find out the extra Bangali onboard is a nature reporter and has millions of followers! And he was now able to add more exciting video clips🙃
After dropping our extra passengers off at the Shundorban park dock we headed out for mainland. This Pashur River, that is just up from the Bay of Bengal, is quite large and we came past 1 especially massive ocean going vessel🚢 .
Back at Hotel Pashur, we parted ways with our fellow missionaries, after bathroom break and delving into the leftover bars, fruit,… from lunch.
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