Gopalganj: Beel Route Canal

Saturday, 22 June 2013

Arpara Munsi Bari is situated exactly beside the famous Beel Route Canal(বিল রুট ক্যানেল) of Gopalganj(গোপালগঞ্জ). So after visiting the Munsi Bari(মুন্সীবাড়ী), we have enjoyed our afternoon for a while at the bank of this canal. This is a straight canal that connects the river Arial Khan at Tekerhat(টেকেরহাট) with the river Madhumati at Gopalganj(গোপালগঞ্জ). Main beauty of the canal is the straight line like shape which lies exactly beside the Madaripur-Gopalganj(মাদারীপুর-গোপালগঞ্জ) highway.

According to Banglapedia, this canal was initially proposed by Sir Arthur Cotton in 1958. But later on the digging process started during 1899. After having several experiments, the canal was later opened for public navigation at 1914. The depth of the canal is more or less around 140 meter on average.

The river Kumar joins with this canal and flows further together until it joins the river Madhumati. Also this canal has taken lot of small canals and wet lands in it. Most of these are from the Madaripur(মাদারীপুর). That’s why people also call this canal as Madaripur Beel Route(মাদারীপুর বিল রুট). You can read more about this Beel Route Canal(বিল রুট ক্যানেল) from the Banglapedia if you have time in hand.

Basically we were returning back after visiting the Arpara. And there was only one boat on the canal to cross at that point. So we had to wait for that and it actually gave us a chance to prolong our staying there. The exact location at where we were wandering is (23° 3’6.83″N, 89°48’57.25″E). There are few amazing things around that place available.

One is, its a point where a river(some people say its a canal) join this Beel Route Canal(বিল রুট ক্যানেল) and formed a shape of Y. Usual depth of the canal is very deep, but being a converging point, this place was even more deeper than the expectation. That’s why this place is a perfect hideout for the native Dolphins locally known as Sushuk(শুশুক). These giant sized fishes were playing around the water by waving their back over the water surface for a short period of time. This more than evanescent things were happening frequently around us.

This photo was taken from the Ulpur Bridge.

After crossing the canal we were waiting at the highway for any kind vehicles that would drop us to our next destination, which was Ulpur(উলপুর). After visiting Ulpur(উলপুর), we had to struggle for a public transport to come back to Tekerghat(টেকেরহাট). We found one after the sunset. And it was possibly the day before the full moon. On the right side of us was a large sized moon on the sky. And on the left side of us was having this massive canal. The whole one and half an hour of journey we have accompanied by these two beautiful things together.

How to Go:

Beel Route Canal(বিল রুট ক্যানেল) is an amazingly beautiful place to visit which is less crowded as not much people are aware about this. This place is very near from Dhaka. Anyone can visit this place and return back to home within a single day. Its a huge canal and you can enjoy it’s beauty from any part/portion you like. In our case the GPS coordinate was (23° 3’6.83″N, 89°48’57.25″E).

There are several bus services use to go from Dhaka to Tekerhat(টেকেরহাট). Using any of those you can come to Tekerhat(টেকেরহাট). The canal starts from there. So you can start exploring from there easily. My suggestion is to take a local bus and keep moving towards the Gopalganj(গোপালগঞ্জ). After enjoying the river for 30/40 minutes during the journey, just leave the bus and start exploring the canal.