Srimangal and Sylhet Trip: Day 3

I slept really well in the resort’s comfortable bed, and woke up early to find it raining again. We went up to the resort’s dining area for breakfast, and I had my seventh cha in three days. Too much cha!
We took the bus north again, ending up at a boat dock. We were supposed to take a boat to the next place, but the boat could only take nine people at a time. I wasn’t feeling well so I decided to stay with the teachers and take the second trip. We took the boat upriver, passing a lot of other boats on the way. We docked and walked for a while, then ended up at a lookout tower with an amazing view of the hills and river. When my group got there the others were doing yoga surrounded by the amazing view. Devin is a trained yoga instructor, so she was leading the group. After a while we took the boat back and it started to rain. We went back to the hotel for lunch and to check out.
After lunch we visited the nearby shrine of a pir, or Muslim saint. Surrounding it were streets full of little shops selling prayer beads and other souvenirs. Some of us women got out, covering our heads with our ornas, and went to look at the shrine while Bennett and some of the male teachers went into it. Women had a special area to stand where they could look at the outside of the shrine and say their prayers. Next to the bus there were a few faqirs who had made the pilgrimage from India to see the shrine and a few Hindus there to pray to the pir. Our bus driver is a believer in shrines, so the experience made him very happy.
After the shrine we drove along a street and found a basket-maker’s shop where they were selling the round pointed hats we had been seeing around Sylhet. Mary and Bennett both bought one.
We then drove through Sylhet city, which was really crowded but not as bad as Dhaka. On the trip back to Dhaka the sun finally came out. When it was starting to get dark we stopped at a large, nice restaurant and got naan and cha. Coming back into Dhaka we hit a traffic jam that took us more than three hours to get through. We finally arrived home at 1 AM to find that the cooks had food ready for us. They had made us pasta and chicken, which was refreshing because we had had only deshi food for the whole weekend. Corrine also got back late and ate with us; she had gone to Bogra for the weekend. She brought us back delicious mishti doi, sweet yogurt, which is the Bengali specialty.