Potatoes and Ruins

Today we headed off to see the remains of Paharpur Buddhist monastery. Originally, planned to be a fairly short trip. However, on the way were delayed in a town where what appeared to thousands of tons of potatoes in big hessian sacks were being delivered to a central market. The hundreds of trucks & PNCs formed a melee in the centre of town totally blocking traffic movement in either direction through out the whole place. They were wheel to plumber with little room to pass.

Potato Commerce

Rather than sit - fuming - on the bus we decamped on mass and attempted to walk down the road until the bus caught us up. With the road blocked we had to thread our way through the road stall, mountains of loose potatoes and little huddles of men buying & selling. For a while, I found a first floor platform from which I could, covertly, watch the ebb and flow of commerce below. However, after a while, others joined my in my eyire and the tables were turned. We were noticed by the crowd and below became a sea of up-tuned faces and mobile phones.

We again decamped from the bus when we came across a failed bridge and it had to negotiate precarious earth ramps down into the riverbed and up again. We carried on walking through the village, collecting the usual herd of smiling children and passing often shy & bemused adults. We were invited to visit one of the villager's houses - I usually find such visits to be slightly too much like a human zoo. However, the family seemed genuinely pleased to welcome us - even cooking us some sweet sticky 'pancakes'. We weren't alone as most of the village also crammed into the courtyard around which the family's rooms were built.

Paharpur

This monastery was once the largest monastery south of the Himalayas with a site that covers 27 acres. The massive quadrangular structure is contained within a boundary made up of 177 cells and a traditional Buddhist stupa in the centre. The rooms were used by the monks for accommodation and meditation. In addition to the large number of stupas and shrines of various sizes and shapes, terracotta plaques, stone sculptures, inscriptions, coins, ceramics etc. have been discovered and some were on display in the museum. Opposed to yesterday's sites, there were hundreds of local tourists picnicking in and around the site, school were being harangued by frazzled teachers, party music blared from trumpet speakers and, inevitably, a few stalls selling shlock & tat.

After this visit we returned to Bogra for lunch and then headed to Mahasthangarh. 

This is the earliest urban archaeological site so far discovered in Bangladesh and contains the remains of an ancient city which was called Pundranagara or Paundravardhanapura. The fortified city's heyday was under the Buddhists who were here until at least the 11^th century AD but the fortified area was in use till the 18th century AD. 

Together with the ancient and medieval ruins, the mazhar (holy tomb) of Shah Sultan Balkhi Mahisawar built at site of a Hindu temple is located at Mahasthangarh. He was a dervish (holy person devoted to Islam) of royal lineage who came to the Mahasthangarh area, with the objective of spreading Islam among non-Muslims. He converted the people of the area to Islam and settled there.

After touring the site returned to Bogra for our second night. After a quick beer in next door's bar, we headed into town to a restaurant that had a Chinese feel - very discretely they too were able to provide a can of imported beer to support our excellent repast