Our bus was supposed to start at 11:30 pm from Gabtoli bus stand. So we planned to be at the bus stand by 11:00pm. Wahid vai, Talha and Roki was the first to reach at the bus stand. They searched and found out the AK travel bus counter. Manik, Suhan vai and I reached at the bus stand withing 11:15PM. In the mean time Wahid talked to the person in-charge at the counter. He told wahid that our journey will be delayed and we need to wait around an hour for the bus.
It was a cold night. After weeks of heavy rain, country was having a cold blow. Bus stand was a crowded place. But we could feel the chills in our skins even after wearing warm clothes. So to kill the time and make us comfortable, we went to a tea stall nearby. Unfortunately the tea stall didnt have any arrangement to sit. So we had to took our tea and started gossiping about different topics. Most of the topics were related to Cash of Clan (CoC) and Clash Royal as all of us play theses Android games and belongs to same Clan.
The crowd in bus stand started to break as night grew older. by midnight most of the outgoing buses has already left. It was almost 12:30 when we went back to the bus counter to know the update. Unfortunately for us, bus has not came yet. But we noticed that the bus counter was closing for the night. So we took phone number of our bus driver and the bus supervisor. Manik called the bus supervisor requesting an update. What we came to know was shocking for us. Our bus was coming from Shatkhira and will go tho Chittagong via Dhaka. We will get on when the bus reaches to Dhaka. Bus supervisor has also informed us that they are waiting to cross the Dowlotdia-Paturia ferry. We were shocked. We knew that it will take at least 2 hours for the bus to reach to us.
We all were pissed off but Manik and Suhan vai was furious. 
They wanted to cancel the tour and return to home. But Wahid and I was determined to continue the tour no matter what. Even though they didnt agree with us but they didnt return to home. In the mean time we have noticed that most of the bus counters has closed for the night and only handful people are at the bus stand and waiting for bus. We returned to our tea stall for another cup of tea but the tea seller said he was done for the night. He closed his stall and we went for some place to sit. We finally got some empty sits provided for waiting passenger. We all were exhausted and tired but our spirit was still strong. We kept waiting patiently. In the mean time last bus at the bus stand left taking all the remaining passenger except us. For one moment we were in dilemma whether we were tricked and whether our bus is actually coming.
So we called the bus supervisor again and responded that they have crossed the ferry but it will take another an hour to reach to Gabtoli bus stand. Furthermore, they will call us once they reach to Dhaka. Now Manik was furious. He decided to return to home. We tried to stop him but he listened to none of us. We became pissed off and let him leave. But after half an hour later he returned while eating some chips. He gave 2 packet of chips to us. But chips vanished in moments. We didnt know we were this much hungry. So Manik and I head back to the store to buy some more chips and some dry foods.
Around 3:30am, our bus supervisor called us and informed us that bus will arrive in 15 minutes. We all were tired and sleepy. But gathered our things and headed to the pickup point. Bus arrived in 10 minutes and we all boarded in. We took our sits and thats all I remember from that time. I was so tiered that I fell asleep as instantly. When other woke me up, we were at Comilla taking a journey break. It was almost morning. We were too tiered so none of us was ready to get down from bus. So we stayed in the bus and I returned to sleeping. When I woke up again, It was 10 am in the morning and we were entering the Feni after crossing Comilla.
Traffic on the road was too heavy. It took us 2 hours to reach Chittagong from Feni. We got down at Chittagong GEC circle. We were hungry but we decided to have lunch at Bahaddarhat bus stand. We didnt find any CNG but we found a bus going to Bahaddarhat. So we got on it. But we got down way to early from our destination. We needed to take 15 minutes of walk before we finally reached to the bus stand. We needed to take a bus from Bahaddarhat to go to Bandarban. We bought our ticket but took our lunch while waiting for the bus. we started from Bahaddarhat bus stand at 1 :30 pm.
It took us around two and half hours to reach Bandarban. We remained awake during this whole journey and enjoyed the beautiful scenarios. As it was raining heavily for last couple of days, it washed away all the dust from the hill area. We enjoyed the curvy roads while watching the greens all around. By the time we reached Bandardban it was raining. We got down and searched for shelter to avoid drenching in rain. After some times getting hold on to us, we realized we have reached our initial destination and need to go to Roma Bazar. But it was already too late to go to Roma Bazar and there is no way we can go there directly. So we decided to stay at Bandarban for the night and start fresh in the morning.
I was revisiting Bandarban after 4 years. It was 2012 when I first visited Bandarban with my school friends. That was one memorable tour. But thats for another time. I was trying to reconcile what I seen in 2012 and what I was watching in 2016 after 4 years. There was lots of changes which was hard for me to comprehend. But then I realized that core town remained the same. We took a walk around the town for a suitable hotel room. We found on after searching couple of hotels.
We checked into hotel and freshened up. After taking some rest for a while, we set out to roam around the town. It was evening by then. We walked around the town for an hour and finally we discovered a juice bar. We decided to have mixed fruit faluda before we take dinner. We all were tired from our journey and needed to relax.
While having the mixed fruits we reconciled out tour plans. We lost a day from out plan. Initially it was planned to stay at Boga lake for two days. But we decided to shorten the journey to 1 day. Our revised plan was to start for Roma Bazar early in the morning and reach there by midday. Then buy things necessary for BBQ at the Boga Lake. We will take a Jeep and reach to boga lake by afternoon. After sight seeing we will have a BBQ party. We will return to Roma Bazar by next day noon and return to Bandarban on the same day. We will return to Dhaka by taking an overnight journey. But we didnt know fate was smiling over our tour plan.
After gossiping at the juice bar and roaming around the town for couple of hours, we decided to have dinner and returned to our hotel room. It didnt take long for us to fell asleep as all of us were tiered. We also wanted to sleep early so that we can get up early in the morning and take the first bus to Roma Bazar.
[will be continued in Episode 3]