# Bangladesh rail and ferry travel, any insights?



## v v (Mar 10, 2021)

Although safer serious long distance travel still looks a long way away, it doesn't hurt to make open ended plans.

We're taken with the idea of a train ride from London or Paris to Dhaka by land or short sea crossings, planes are out... we hope. Visiting Iran, India and in particular Bangladesh are all intriguing, we'd like to include Pakistan in that group of countries but it looks a tad chancy and has done for a while.

While there is tons of information on India and to a lesser extent on Iran, there appears to be very little on the ground recent information on Bangladesh, any insights from other Asian travellers on this forum?

Thanks


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## caravanman (Mar 10, 2021)

You might find somewhat "recent" info by looking up youtube videos, I know "Indigo Traveller" and "Kara and Nate" have visited Bangladesh in recent years...


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## v v (Mar 10, 2021)

OK, thanks Ed, I never think of youtube. 

Further along I'd like to bend your ear on India, that ok?


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## jis (Mar 10, 2021)

After the COVID excitement is over, the through train service called Maitree Express from Kolkata (India) to Dhaka, 5 days a week should be restored. Unless you are planning to go to Barisal District you don't need to take a ferry anymore. Everything is connected by dual gauge railway tracks augmented by good bus service where there is no railway, across various enormous new bridges and more still being built.

Beware that the Bangladesh train leaves from Kolkata International, which is nowhere near the two big stations Sealdah and Howrah in Kolkata. It is in Chitpur and best reached by Uber from anywhere in Kolkata. Also it terminates at Dhaka Cantonment, and does not go to the downtown Kamalapur Station. C&I is at the two terminal stations, with only a brief stop at the border stations for crew change at Gede in India and crew and loco change at Darshana in Bangladesh. The train leaves early in the morning from both ends and arrives in mid afternoon at both ends. Accommodation is all Air-conditioned, either Chair Car or First Class compartments. Last I looked, tickets were not available on the internet, but that could have changed more recently. In Kolkata they are available either at the Eastern Railway City Ticket Office at Fairley Place, or at Kolkata International Station (Chitpur). Oddly in Dhaka they are available only at Kamalapur Station.

There is a second train from Kolkata International to Khulna in Southwest Bangladesh called Bandhan Express which runs a few times a week too with accommodations similar to the Dhaka train. Actually one of the (Indian) consists is shared between the two services.

Allegedly a third service is going to be inaugurated in late March 2021 between Dhaka and New Jalpaiguri in North West Bengal in India (starting point of the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway) using the Chilahati-Haldibari border crossing which was restored for freight recently. Not much more is known about it yet.

Internally Bangladesh has extensive rail service using mostly new rolling stock imported from Indonesia, China and India. For more details see the Bangladesh Railway entry in Wikipedia .

As of 3/10/21, international train service remains suspended due to COVID though train service within India has been substantially restored, though all trains are called "specials" and carry route number of the original trains that they substitute with the first digit of the route number being a "0" instead of the normal "1", e.g. the normally 12301/12302 Howrah - New Delhi Rajdhani is operated now as 02301/02302 Howrah - New Delhi AC Superfast Special, on the same schedule as 12301/12302. At some point they will revert back to pre-COVID name I suppose.

A few links that may be useful

Bangladesh Railway Map

Bangladesh Railway Schedule


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## v v (Mar 10, 2021)

Wow!

Thank you jis, that is incredibly detailed. May I ask have you visited Dhaka by train?

Have been watching an older Michaerl Palin BBC travelogue 'Himalaya'. For both of us most of the first episode and the second half of the last (6th) episode really made us sit up, no idea why but they have grabbed out imaginations.

The outline is to make a long train journey stopping for a few days only here or there, but in the main it is the 10,000+ km train journey that interests us. We do like to keep moving and if anywhere stands out we try to go back for a longer visit, but it's the actual travel that is the draw.

In Bangladesh Palin took a number of ferries too, small and large, it looked like a busy part of the Nile on steroids, completely crazy.

Thank you again


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## jis (Mar 10, 2021)

v v said:


> Wow!
> 
> Thank you jis, that is incredibly detailed. May I ask have you visited Dhaka by train?


No I have not, but I know many people who have taken both the train and bus service from Kolkata to Dhaka.

My ancestors on my maternal Grandfather's side came to Kolkata from Barisal, which is soon to get its first rail service, now reachable only by ferry from Dhaka.

At present the Kolkata - Dhaka train operates across the Bangabandhu Bridge across the Jamuna (Bramhaputra) and Hardinge Bridge across the Ganga on a slightly round about route. Most buses still go on the ferry on a shorter route, though many also take the Bangabandhu Bridge route.

There is a new 6.15km long 42 span bridge under construction , almost all of it over the vast and wide and deep Padma River which carries the waters of both the Ganga and Bramhaputra/Tsangpo and said to be only second to the Amazon. The new bridge is a rail cum road bridge carrying four lanes of road on the upper deck and a single track 160kph (100mph) dual gauge railway track on the lower level. When this goes into service together with a new rail link from it to Jessore (on the route of the Bandhan Express), the journey from Kolkata to Dhaka will shorten to as little as 5 hours or so. It is still a few years away. They just completed lifting the last span into place of the total of 42 spans of 150m each.


> Have been watching an older Michael Palin BBC travelogue 'Himalaya'. For both of us most of the first episode and the second half of the last (6th) episode really made us sit up, no idea why but they have grabbed out imaginations.


In my experience, once you experience the high Himalayan passes over 17-18,000' it leaves a very indelible effect on you and changes your world view forever. I have crossed the mighty Himalayas twice by road in two different areas (Kathmandu/Nepal to Lhasa/Tibet, and Manali to Leh in India. It is quite an unforgettable experience. In addition of course I have been on both the Darjeeling Himalayan and the Kalka Simla narrow gauge lines several times.

Now I am waiting for the completion of the Kashmir Rail Link across the Pir Panjal Range through the long Pir Panjal Tunnel, and across the worlds highest steel arch bridge being built across the Sutlej in Reasi District of Jammu and Kashmir State.


> The outline is to make a long train journey stopping for a few days only here or there, but in the main it is the 10,000+ km train journey that interests us. We do like to keep moving and if anywhere stands out we try to go back for a longer visit, but it's the actual travel that is the draw.
> 
> In Bangladesh Palin took a number of ferries too, small and large, it looked like a busy part of the Nile on steroids, completely crazy.


Dhaka has a vast ferry network connecting it to many river ports in the Padma (Ganga + Bramhaputra) Delta region.


> Thank you again


You're welcome.


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## jis (Mar 10, 2021)

Allegedly visa on arrival is now available for US Passport holders at a few designated land border crossings, including the international train ones. But beware, you have to leave the country through the same border crossing that you entered through if you use the visa on arrival facility. This can be avoided by obtaining a visa from the Bangladesh Consulate in the US or in Kolkata, which would make it possible to travel into Bangladesh by train and depart out of Dhaka or Chitagong Airport by air, for example.


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## v v (Mar 11, 2021)

jis said:


> No I have not, but I know many people who have taken both the train and bus service from Kolkata to Dhaka.
> 
> My ancestors on my maternal Grandfather's side came to Kolkata from Barisal, which is soon to get its first rail service, now reachable only by ferry from Dhaka.
> 
> ...





jis said:


> Allegedly visa on arrival is now available for US Passport holders at a few designated land border crossings, including the international train ones. But beware, you have to leave the country through the same border crossing that you entered through if you use the visa on arrival facility. This can be avoided by obtaining a visa from the Bangladesh Consulate in the US or in Kolkata, which would make it possible to travel into Bangladesh by train and depart out of Dhaka or Chitagong Airport by air, for example.




That is an amzing amount of information, we can't thank you enough.

At the end of next week we will try to leave France and try to enter the UK, then an 11 day quarantine awaits which prohibits leaving the premises. I'll go through Ed's video recommedations and all your info during quarantine, many a worse way to spend that time.

One further question. A couple of years ago saw a travelogue re a re-opened rail crossing between Pakistan and India, is there a famous one a lot of fuss was made about, maybe in NW India? We've both forgotten where the border crossing was.


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## jis (Mar 11, 2021)

v v said:


> One further question. A couple of years ago saw a travelogue re a re-opened rail crossing between Pakistan and India, is there a famous one a lot of fuss was made about, maybe in NW India? We've both forgotten where the border crossing was.


There are two passenger rail crossing between India and Pakistan which are both twice a week service AFAIR, and open when both Pakistan and India are in a relatively good mood and are not arguing about something or Pakistan not trying to invade the Indian Parliament and such other ancillary activities that are not all that uncommon. Both involved a change of train at the border at the Indian border station.

The first one is the Samjhauta Express crossing at Attari-Wagah border posts between Amritsar and Lahore. This consists of a Pakistani Link Express from Lahore to Attari, where after going through Indian C&I passengers board the Samjhauta Express to Delhi Jn, which is an overnight train with non AC and occasionally AC Sleeper service.

The second one is the Thar Express across the Munabao - Kokhropar border. It again consists of two trains, the Pakistani Thar Express from Karachi to Munabao, where after clearing Indian C&I passengers board an Indian Link Express to Jodhpur. The details change often and it is prudent to inquire locally about the service close to the planned travel dates. You can see videos on both through a simple search by train name in Youtube.

In general the Pakistan - India service is targeted more towards the lower middle class and poorer people with a lot of ordinary second class, and non-AC Sleepers, whereas the India - Bangladesh service is for a somewhat higher echelon clientele with all AC service including First Class AC. This may be because there is a plethora of cheaper bus services between India and Bangladesh, and an enormous amount of on foot border crossing. It is not uncommon and much cheaper for someone to travel by a local train to the border station in Bangladesh, cross the border on foot through the checkpost and then board an Indian local train to Kolkata. All the border stations near Kolkata are on the Kolkata Suburban EMU network with relatively frequent and very inexpensive service.

This is almost totally absent between India and Pakistan. There is not even a Suburban service from Amritsar or Lahore to the border though it is much closer to the border from both, than the Bangladesh border is from Kolkata. That may be because the relation between India and Pakistan is never not tense. It hovers between tense and hostile. The relation between India and Bangladesh OTOH is best described as cordial, with more and more border crossings opening up and lot of cross border commerce and family travel since a lot of extended families span the two countries, and a common language (Bengali) ties the two sides together somewhat transcending political divisions. Bengali chauvinism is a strong force. Surprisingly, even though the same could happen in the Punjab, since most of the same elements are present there too, but apparently the political and religious animosities across the border are still very strong, too strong to be overcome by Punjabi chauvinism and family ties alone.


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