Known for
- 1
The Meghna shore.
Lakshmipur's western edge is the Meghna, kilometres wide: Matirhat and Alexander in Ramgati and Kamalnagar are river beaches with an embankment to walk, fishing boats, and a horizon with no far bank. The river is also eating the district, and the embankments are the fight against it.
- 2
Zamindar houses and old mosques.
The Dalal Bazar estate outside the town, 400 years old with its gate, tank and rajbari, is the best of the district's landlord houses; the Jinn mosque at Raipur and the Tita Khan mosque in the town bazar are its curiosities. Soybean and coconut are what the fields grow.
Best season
GoodFairNov–Feb
November to February for the river beaches: calm water, cool evenings, the embankments dry. The monsoon river is huge and rough and erosion is at its worst from June to September; the beaches disappear under water then. Nothing inland depends on the season.
Getting there
Bus
Dhaka
4–5 h, ৳450–800
Via Cumilla; Jononi, Ecno and others from Sayedabad
Bus
Chattogram
4 h
Via Feni and Noakhali
Launch
Majuchowdhuryhat
2 h
Across the Meghna to Bhola
Buses from Dhaka's Sayedabad reach Lakshmipur in 4 to 5 hours by Cumilla; buses from Chattogram take about 4 via Noakhali. There is no railway. From the town, CNGs go to Dalal Bazar (15 minutes), Raipur (30) and Ramgati and Alexander (an hour and a half), and launches cross the Meghna from Majuchowdhuryhat to Bhola.
Local food
Fried hilsa at the Meghna ghatsMust try
Alexander and Matirhat
River hilsa and other Meghna fish at the Alexander and Matirhat ghats, fried on the spot; coconut and the soybean the district grows more of than anywhere else; and the sweets of Lakshmipur bazar.
Places to see
BeachRedmin · CC BY 4.0Alexander Meghna Beach
The embankment and river beach at Alexander in Ramgati, where the Meghna is so wide it looks like the sea: a long paved walk, boats, fried hilsa stalls and the district's best sunset.
Fort and palaceMahbubPathan · CC BY-SA 4.0Dalal Bazar Zamindar Bari
A 400-year-old zamindar estate on five acres at Dalal Bazar, 7 km from the town: the arched gateway, the two-storey rajbari, a mandap, the Khoa Sagar tank beside it and the family temple, all still standing.
Jinn Mosque, Raipur
The late-19th-century Masjid-e-Jame Abdullah in Raipur town, called the Jinn mosque because local legend says jinns built it in a night: a tall domed hall over a basement, with minarets and old plasterwork.
Kamankhola Zamindar Bari
The house of the Das zamindars at Kamankhola near the town, whose estate was in Raipur: a decaying two-storey building with a temple and tank, named for the cannon (kaman) once kept there.
Khoa Sagar Dighi
The big tank beside the Dalal Bazar estate, dug by the zamindars for the village: a wide, still sheet of water with high banks, named for the mist (khoa) that lies on it in winter mornings.
Mosque and shrineMahmuddulbd · CC BY-SA 4.0Tita Khan Jame Mosque
A small old mosque in the middle of Lakshmipur bazar, said to be about 300 years old and found hidden in a garden by a saint named Azim Shah; prized for its carved plaster front.
Sources 2
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