Man Of Few Words

Chapter 80

Musa's leg of the journey was indeed longer and more challenging than that taken on by either myself or Iffi. The roads got gradually narrower, bendier and more uneven, and the surrounding vegetation got progressively thicker. We saw less and less of the sun as we approached the middle of the day, not because the sky clouded over, but because we were winding our way through shady forest valleys with fewer and fewer breaks in the trees.

Even this far away fromany major cities though, there were so many baby taxis. I remember thinking,"Where are they all going? There's nothing here!"

I could have asked Musa and Iffi about that, but I didn't want to give them an excuse to double-team me with laughter again, so I just concluded that there must be settlements dotted around everywhere, but that they were hidden behind trees.

I think the last town we passed through was the aptly named Chimbuk Forest, then after that... nothing. For two whole hours it was just hills, valleys, trees and very few other vehicles. I had been being polite earlier when I'd agreed with Musa that the landscape was beautiful. The region outside Chittagong was pleasant, I'll give it that, but that was all. Now though we were in really beautiful territory. We mostly drove in silence, Musa concentrating on negotiating the increasingly sketchy roads, me staring out of the window just taking the scenery in, and Iffi drifting in and out of sleep in the back. I felt we were very, very lucky that it wasn't raining. That would have made it much harder to drive, much harder to snooze, and much harder to enjoy the view.

After two slow, bumpy and occasionally slightly nerve-wracking hours, we pulled up in the village of Ruma Bazar, a scattered collection of rusty shacks interlinked by a complex network of dirt tracks and paths. As soon as we arrived, people approached us with things to sell. Musa firmly waved them away, but then he did take out a handful of bank notes and approach one quite shifty looking guy in a loud shirt that looked several sizes too big.

"He's arranging for this bloke and his mates to keep an eye on the car while we're gone," Iffi explained. "It's not like this place is rough or nothing. He's doing them a favour really, just letting them know we're good people. And y'know... showing off."

Iffi laughed and hauled open the back of the truck. He pointed at a large box and called out to Musa, who responded and nodded, then went back to his negotiation. As soon as Iffi opened the box, the smell hit me. Musa had brought a huge box of takeout prepared at one of his restaurants, and the aroma was fucking magical.

"Dig in mate," Iffi invited me as he unwrapped a foil package, looking delighted to find a huge, generously stuffed samosa inside. I didn't need to be told twice.

Before joining us for lunch, Musa wandered off towards the river. He came back about five minutes later and told us,

"Ready to go when we are."

"Who is?" I asked, suddenly realising I wasn't entirely clear what we were doing here.

"The guys with the boat," interjected Iffi, little pieces of pastry, onion and peas tumbling out of his mouth as he spoke. "They're gonna take us to the waterfall. Right hand, mate."

I quickly followed his reminder while he brushed crumbs off his chest and took another enormous bite of his samosa.

Once we were all sure we'd eaten our fill – and we made very sure – we headed down to the dock (I should say, the ghat) and boarded our vessel, a long, narrow, wooden reeshongshong. As we climbed on, Iffi reassured me,

"Much more stable than it looks, mate. Slow as fuck though, so get comfortable."

This was easier said than done, as the boat was very narrow. We were instructed by our skipper to spread ourselves out along its length, as we had the whole thing to ourselves and needed to distribute our weight evenly. After a bit of jiggling from side to side, giggling at each other, and the cousins' usual high volume banter, we were ready. The engine snarled into life and we crawled at a barely perceptible speed into the middle of the river.

Much like the drive there, the boat trip became quite relaxing once you got used to it. There was no air conditioning though of course, so we only had a patchy woven shade to protect us from the sun. Iffi and Musa had made me sit directly under it, quite rightly really. The air close to the surface of the river was a little cooler, which helped, but it was a pretty sweaty, drippy two hours nonetheless. Given the distance between the three of us, we couldn't really make conversation over the noise of rhe engine without unreasonable effort, so we all just shut up and contemplated the view, which was both spectacular and fascinating. Not only was there more of the rolling mountain vistas that I was becoming accustomed to by that point, but there were also glimpses of indigenous local people taking a break from their daily business to stop and stare at us puttering by for a minute or two. Every time this happened, I waved at them. And every time I did that, no amount of engine noise could drown out Iffi's laughter.