Known for
- 1
Two hill forests.
In Chunarughat, on the low hills along the Tripura border, Satchari National Park is the easy one: marked trails, a canopy tower, western hoolock gibbons and langurs, and a Tripura village at its edge. Rema-Kalenga, a little south, is older, bigger and wilder, and is walked with a local guide.
- 2
Tea, 1971 and the haor.
The Dhaka–Sylhet highway runs past Teliapara tea estate, where the sector commanders met in April 1971; a memorial stands there today. To the west the land drops into haor, where the Shankarpasha mosque of 1513, the Bithangal monastery and the Lakshmi Baor swamp forest wait.
Best season
GoodFairNov–Feb
November to February is dry and pleasant for the forest trails, and the best time to see birds. The haor sites (Bithangal, Lakshmi Baor) are reached by boat only when the water is high, from July to October; in the dry months the water drains away.
Getting there
Bus
Dhaka
About 4 hours
Sylhet-bound buses; get off at Habiganj or Shayestaganj.
Train
Dhaka
Intercity trains to Sylhet stop at Shayestaganj.
Getting around
Shayestaganj
CNG auto-rickshaws to Satchari, Rema-Kalenga and Teliapara; boats on the haor in the wet season.
Buses on the Dhaka–Sylhet highway stop at Habiganj and at Shayestaganj, the junction for Chunarughat; Satchari sits right on the highway. Intercity trains on the Dhaka–Sylhet line stop at Shayestaganj. From there CNG auto-rickshaws reach the forests and Teliapara; the haor is crossed by hired boat from Habiganj or Baniachong.
Local food
Haor fishMust try
Fresh from the wetlands, in a light curry.
Garden tea
From the estates of Chunarughat and Madhabpur.
Haor fish above all: fresh river and wetland fish cooked with shatkora or plain in a light curry, and dried fish (shutki). Tea from the gardens around Chunarughat and Madhabpur.
Places to see
Lakshmi Baor Swamp Forest
A freshwater swamp forest in the middle of the haor at Baniachong, locally called the Kharti jungle, larger than Ratargul.
Wildlife and national parkSaad.Kaikobad · CC BY-SA 4.0Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary
One of the best-kept natural hill forests in the country, about 1,800 hectares on the Tripura border, set aside in 1982 and enlarged in 1996.
Forest and mangroveeee.mostafizur · CC BY-SA 4.0Satchari National Park
A small hill forest of 243 hectares on the Dhaka–Sylhet highway, named for the seven streams that run through it: the easiest place in the country to hear gibbons.
Mosque and shrineফজলুল জাহিদ পাভেল · CC BY-SA 4.0Shankarpasha Shahi Mosque
A brick mosque of the Bengal Sultanate in Uchail, completed in 1513 under Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah.
Teliapara Tea Estate
A tea garden of flat land and low hills in Madhabpur, and the place where the Liberation War was organised into sectors in 1971.
Sources 2
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