~courtesy Guide Tours~

50 Kilometers offshore of Dubla Island (Sundarban Reserve Forest), there is an underwater canyon where the depth increases drastically from only 10 meters to over 500meters – the Swatch-of-No-Ground. The change in depth is clearly visible on the surface, dramatically marked by a contrasting color change. The amazing fish abundance supports a large number and diversity of marine mammals, namely whales and dolphin.

Since 2004, the Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP), a research project supported by the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is conducting cetacean research at the Swatch-of-No-Ground.

This winter, the local fishing boat “Shahin Akhter” turned research vessel welcomes you to join the BCDP team during their research activities at the Swatch-of-No-Ground and meet the Bottlenose, Spinner and Spotted dolphins as well as the local gentle giants, the Brydes’s whale.

TRIP ITINERARY
Day 1 Travel by a/c Volvo day bus or afternoon flight from Dhaka to Khulna. Drive from Khulna to Mongla (1hrs) by non-a/c reserved car/microbus. Stay overnight at the Parjatan Motel ‘Passur’, Mongla.

Day 2 Board F.B. Shaheen Akhtar at Mongla very early in the morning, between 4 and 6 am. Cruise 120 kilometers south through the Sundarban mangrove forest. Reach the Swatch-of-No-Ground around 3pm, where you will search for and observe dolphins until sunset. Overnight on board F.B. Shaheen Akhtar, drifting at the Swatch-of-No-Ground.

Day 3 Wake up at the Swatch. After some hours of more dolphin searching, the boat will cruise back to Mongla, arriving between 8 and 10 pm. Overnight stay at Motel Passur.

Day 4 Early morning drive to Khulna by non-a/c reserved car/microbus in time to catch the a/c Volvo day bus or morning flight to Dhaka. You will reach Dhaka in the late afternoon if traveling by bus, by midday if traveling by air.

Please note that this is an Adventure Trip. All arrangements are very basic, including accommodation, food and toilet. There is no shower or basin on board. The trip itinerary will be adjusted to weather circumstances if required. We kindly request you to consult with our office staff and see photographs of the arrangements before considering joining this tour.

Departure-Return Dates (4am from Mongla)
20-21 Dec 08
3-4 Jan 09
5-6 Jan 09
30-31 Jan 09
1-2 Feb 09
3-4 Feb 09

Please note: It is possible to catch the 11pm bus from Khulna (Day 2) to be back in Dhaka by the next morning. This will reduce the cost for accommodation at the Motel Passur, Mongla.

Price per person for above mentioned Itinerary in BDT*:
6-7 pax: 14,150 BDT
4-5 pax: 18,400 BDT
3 pax: 25,900 BDT

Price includes:
1. Transfer by non-A/C reserved vehicle KHL-MNGL-KHL
2. Trip to Swatch-of-No-Ground on F. B. Shaheen Akhtar according to itinerary
3. All food from breakfast on day 2 to dinner on day 3

Price does not include:
1. Travel to and from Khulna
a. A/C Volvo Bus DAC-KHL-DAC @ 1300 BDT per person
b. Air DAC-JES-DAC @ 10,500 BDT per person

2. Accommodation at Parjatan Motel ‘Passur’, Mongla
a. A/C room, twin sharing basis @ 1200 BDT/night
b. Non-A/C room, twin sharing basis @ 600 BDT/night

3. Forest Permission for foreign nationals @ 1400 BDT

Things to bring: Sun hat with wide brim and strap, sunscreen, sunglasses, long-sleeve cotton shirts for sun protection, torch/flashlight, towel, tooth brush & paste, sleeping bag, binoculars, camera & battery/charger, munchies, prescription medicine (if required).

Things to know before deciding to join this trip:
• This is an Adventure tour with very basic arrangements
• The overnight onboard the fishing trawler is in big makeshift-cabin, shared with others = very little privacy

• It is noisy when the boat is running
• There is a generator on board to charge your batteries, but no electricity during the day
• The toilet is very, very basic with an extremely narrow entrance (causes problems for large people)
• The food is tasty and hygienic, but basic- rice, dal and vegetables
• Of course we will try our best to show you as much as possible, but please remember that this is a big area and some days, due to weather or other unavoidable reasons, sightings of dolphin or whales might be scarce
• You will see very little of Sundarban as we will cruise along the large Passur river
• While the vessel has safety equipment including two-way radio on board, insurance is the responsibility of each participant

For more information:
House 142, Road 12, Block E
Banani, Dhaka – 1213 Bangladesh
Tel: 880-2-9886983,9862205

A woman stands with her young daughter while collecting relief goods being delivered from CARITAS. Villagers suffered greatly during the cyclone. Many lost their homes, boats and livelihoods. Nevertheless, people are now busy picking up the pieces and rebuilding their lives. See more photos here..

Dear Donors,

Well aware that this message is late in coming, we would like to announce to you all the final total of the funds raised via this website for the Guide Tours Cyclone Sidr relief initiative that we began shortly after Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh.

I am proud to let you know that we raised $1,855 USD by various means.

$1,555 was raised by individual donors sending their money to us directly, and the last $300 was raised by selling Bangladesh travel photography in Beijing. Our friends, Andrea Dowd-Dever and Benjamin Binks, sold our photography at Beijing’s Hutong cultural space.

Guide Tours has told us that they will wrap up all their relief activities by the end of this month, which basically consisted of bringing immediate needs goods to the affected areas. You can read their first field report here.

Once again, on behalf of the benefactors, we would like to thank you for your donation to our effort, and we hope that you can stay in touch with us via this website. Feel free to subscribe to www.joybangla.info using the subscription box at the left.

Travellers take matters into their own hands

In an entirely separate initiative to the Guide Tours relief effort, another individual traveller decided to conduct his own private relief effort with our assistance. Michael Mangano was already planning a visit to Bangladesh to join in our research, but after the cyclone happened, he raised $1,005 from friends and family before coming to assist in the relief of one specific villager of the Sundarbans. You can read more here
and watch a video about our work below:

republished from an e-mail message from Guide Tours

Dear Friends,

Greetings from The Guide Tours Ltd. We hope you and your families are well.

Reports and pictures from the devastating effects of cyclone Sidr have certainly reached your homes. Caring words from all over the world are reaching us with concerns and requests to extend a helping hand.

Natural disasters have and will always strike and effect the poorest of our country the most. We cannot close our eyes to the suffering. As a Tour operator we highlight the beauty and diversity of Bangladesh, while also working towards poverty alleviation. We truly believe that tourism can play an important role in our country’s development. Our long-standing commitment towards the conservation of the Sundarbans has been reaffirmed by seeing the importance of our only remaining natural barrier to the sea during this recent disaster. Although the mangrove forest and its inhabitants took a serious blow, many areas further north were protected by the mangrove forest. We are all shaken by the devastation caused especially to the coastal areas, where many temporary fishing villages were completely destroyed and many lives lost. However, we cannot even start to imagine the effects the cyclone would have had without the protective shield of Sundarban.

Some of our guests have decided not to avail their scheduled tours to the Sundarban forest this month. Although we regret their decision, we understand the reasons and will not charge any cancellation fees this month. Instead we kindly invite you to contribute your cancellation fees towards ongoing relief efforts. With your support we hope to rebuild the tourist facilities in Kotka & Kotchikhali, after ensuring the most immediate required relief to people in and around the forest. Our Sundarban Tours will be running as scheduled.

As a leading Sundarban tour operator we are in the privileged situation of having three vessels that can now be used to distribute relief in areas accessible only by boat. Our vessels started assisting the urgently needed relief work immediately after the cyclone hit. We are focusing on the settlements within the forest (mostly fishing villages and forest stations) and the adjoining areas of Sundarban. In the first phase we are taking down essentials such as drinking water and food. Until today we have already supplied over 3 lakh (4,500 US$) worth of food, water and warm clothing to fishermen, forest department staff and villagers. In the second phase we will assist the rebuilding of shelters, homes and essential facilities.

If you would like to contribute, any assistance in the form of money, dry non-perishable foods and blankets or warm clothes is welcome. We guarantee that all incoming support will be used directly for food, water, fuel, shelter supplies and other essentials. We are obviously not a ‘relief organization’, but our local contacts in the affected areas are helping us coordinate the distribution.

The Guide Tours Ltd. family promises to continue doing their utmost to bring relief to those in need.

We thank you for your concern and support.

Yours sincerely,

Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur, CEO
Hasan Mansur, Chairman

The Guide Tours Ltd.
Darpan Complex, Gulshan-II
Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh

Tel: 880-2-9862205, 9886983
Fax: 880-2-9886984

For your information:
1 US$ = 3-4 Liters of Safe Drinking Water
10 US$ = 20 Kilo of Rice or 10 Kilo of Lentils
100 US$ = one day ship fuel required for transport

Details for Donations:

Name of the account:
The Guide Tours Ltd.

Name of the Bank:
Standard Chartered Bank
Dhaka. 2, Dilkusha c/a, P.O.Box-169, Dhaka-1000
Swift Code Number: SCBLBDDX
Account number: 01-1104772-01
Comment: Cyclone Relief

or, please consider a local or international Relief or Aid Organization for your donation.

***
In order to facilitate donations, we (Belinda Meggitt and Mikey Leung) are accepting funds on behalf of Guide Tours via online payment gateway Paypal. You will need your credit card to donate, please see this link to learn more, or simply click the “Make a Donation” button below. You will need to register for a PayPal account in order to donate. On Dec. 7, we will then wire these funds directly to Guide Tours for restoration work in the Sundarbans.

BBC World Service’s Bangladesh Boat Diary has gone online and live as of October 29.

For the next month, 48 people—scientists, BBC journalists and others—have crammed onto the M.V. Aboshar, a vessel of Guide Tours, to write, photograph and broadcast news from the riverways of Bangladesh.

Their chosen theme is climate change, in which Bangladesh is a focal point because of its unique geographical position in the world. The country is mostly housed within the delta of two major rivers: the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. During the monsoonal rains, a torrent of water comes down from the Himalayas via these rivers, flooding most of the surrounding areas along the way. But that’s not the only reason for the flooding.

Because Bangladesh is also a scant few meters above sea level, it is also particularly vulnerable to tidal surges from the Bay of Bengal. When the tide pushes back against river water coming from the mountains, the water does not drain out from the country with the same efficiency. It is this effect that will become particularly poignant in a climate change scenario—Bangladesh faces a future of flooding when its massive rivers cannot drain out properly because of rising sea levels. Because the tiny nation is almost one of the most densely populated, millions of people will be affected.

The Bangladesh boat diary will be the internet’s version of the journey; users will be able to track the boat’s progress live via the world service website and see the boat’s exact location via an embedded GoogleMap.