It’s all about people eventually, isn’t it?
I’m not sure if I’m qualified to call myself a traveller, but from the little bit of travelling I’ve done, it had shown me how important the people part is, for anything to be truly meaningful. Of all the great trips I did so far, they’re great rarely because of the stunning landscape I’ve seen. Rather, they are great because of the amazing experience I brought home. And most of the time, those experience came from either getting to know new people or from interacting with people even without knowing them!
After returning home from the 100th Local Guide Meetup event, I knew I had to add this trip to my ‘great trip’ list. Not surprisingly, I met some amazing people during the event. Partly because of the positive energy the event created and partly because of seeing other people’s post here about the meetup, I decided I’d share my experience of meeting some amazing people at the event. After some prolonged fight with procrastination and workload, here I am! Let’s get started, shall we? ?
Arafat
Right after we reached Chittagong city to join the event, there was a bus outside the rail station to take us to the restaurant we had booked. I hopped on the bus and noticed the front seat (the one beside drivers) was empty! I hate revealing secrets about myself, but I have a soft corner in my heart for front seats. If you were to make me agree on a deal, the front seat on a trip is the highest offering you could possibly make. I had this two guy in their mid-thirties sitting beside me. It didn’t take long for us to start chatting. Turns out, both of their names are Arafat! They are childhood friends and the story of almost every stage of their life is pretty much the same! I thought it was super interesting. I mean, Imagine having a twin with the same name as you in the house. Wouldn’t that make it so much easier to get away with not washing the dishes and then telling mom that you genuinely thought she asked the other one of you? ?
Our chat quickly revealed that one of the Arafat Bhai* was really interested in history while the other Arafat Bhai was in photography, which of course, is beside their common interest in technology. As our bus passed through different roads in Chittagong city, we talked about many historical events behind them. The history-Arafat Bhai shared his experience of travelling in India, which I found super intriguing.
The three of us spent a good chunk of the day together. What’s funny, we met yet another Arafat Bhai later during the day. I was looking at them while they were talking and I couldn’t help but think, if they took a selfie together, would be inappropriate to call that a ‘Tripl-ara-fie’? Maybe not!
- Bhai, Apu means Brother and Sister respectively. It’s a convention in our (and also in some Indian) culture to add these suffix after the name of people (especially for elders) when mentioning them. I’m going to use these suffixes for the rest of the post.
@BappyBro
We first met at the breakfast table in the morning. I was sharing my plan with Arafat Bhai(s) about going to Cox’s Bazar after the event. They were suggesting to me the best routes and stuff when this guy, from the opposite side of the table, said, ‘Hey, I wanna go to Cox’s Bazar too!’. In the next few seconds, we decided we were going to cox bazar together to spend the next day on the beach. It was that easy!
Remember that bus journey I was talking about? On the way back, I was beside Bappy Bhai and we found out we had the same fitness band on our wrist. And how can you not be friend with someone who has the same wrist-band as you, ha? We became friends in no-time and we kept talking about random stuff. He is a fun guy. His TikTok videos didn’t allow me to have any doubts about that.
Like we planned, we did go to Cox’s Bazar after the event that night. It was Bappy Bhai’s first time seeing the sea, and it was my first time seeing someone seeing the sea for the first time (sorry, but not so sorry for the tongue twister lol). So needless to say, it was a great experience. We also visited some other places in Chittagong together and it’s all memories that this dumb, forgetful brain of mine will take quite some time to forget.
Sadly though, we later discovered our wrist-bands wasn’t actually the same. ? One of them was from a different brand that looked exactly the same as the other one (purposefully, probably). But meh, it served the purpose, haha.
@anazizullah
This is a tricky one, we need to go a few years back in time to get to the root of the story. I was at university. I somehow met a senior from my campus area, named Masum. He is the kind of guy who thinks it’s a fun idea to hack into his wife’s Facebook and post a status that reads ‘I love my husband! I’m so lucky to have him!’. So I found him very interesting. We started hanging out around the city and ended up working on some projects together. We used to go on unplanned weekend trips pretty much every week.
During one of those weekend event, I learned that Masum Bhai contacted a travel ‘guru’ who’ll be joining us on the trip. The plan was to take a night long launch ride to Chandpur district, a hub for catching and distributing Hilsha, our national fish, and eat as much fried Hilsha as we possibly could.
We reached the terminal and I was so excited. I’ve never seen launches so big until that day. I couldn’t wait for the ride! But…I had to since the ‘guru’ wasn’t there yet. With every passing minute, I started to grow more impatient. In the next 2 hour, I imagined the ‘guru’ with a watermelon shaped face on which I was doing some punching practice. Looking at the distant light over the water body of Buriganga river, I kept wishing my imagination would come true in some parallel universe.
Can’t recall how many hours went by, but I turned around when I heard Masum Bhai saying, ‘there he is!’ I looked at the guy and I was frozen. The guy looked a bit confused as well. Masum Bhai was going to introduce us to each other, but I completely ignored him and screamed ‘Oh my god, it’s you!’
And the guy screamed back, ‘How come you’re here!’
It was none other than Aziz Bhai! Turns out, we knew each other already. We are from the same district. Well, even though we were seeing each other after almost 10 years, our past connection is a bit more involved than just sharing the same district. We are from the same area, almost within the same village. Heck, He was also my senior in the same school!
We exchanged a few more sentence of exclamation when Masum Bhai interrupted: ‘Wait, how do you guys…’
I stopped Masum again and asked Aziz Bhai, ‘How do you know Masum Bhai?’
Aziz Bhai looked at Masum Bhai and asked, ‘How do you know Fahim?’
The look on Masum Bhai’s face was a piece of art until we explained what was going on.
Such a small world we live in, no? ?
Aziz Bhai is a super inspiring guy. He’s super active and enthusiastic. Everyone knows someone who somehow gets 10x more done than everyone else and then also is involved in ton other different things. Aziz Bhai is that guy. Besides a number of communities I’m aware of, Aziz Bhai is also a core team member of Bangladesh Local Guides.
You might be wondering why I’m including Aziz here since it wasn’t our first meeting during the meetup. I was sitting with him after the lunch period when I figured, if it wasn’t for Masum, we’d still meet and this meetup would be the place we’d meet.
Is it still cheating? 
@LyricMitra
Ugh, I’m gonna have to share another secret about myself. Keeping my finger crossed my secrets are safe with you, I’m a huge self-talker. Like, literally. When I’m alone, which is probably 90% of my regular day, I talk with myself. I pronounce the words loudly, being completely unaware of it happening. I go out for a walk daily to get my 10k steps and I often get weird looks from people on the street. After a brief moment of confusion, I always realise that I was either laughing or was deeply engaged in a conversation, with myself. The worst part is I can never retrieve what I was saying. I sometimes feel bad not being able to know all the jokes I know subconsciously. I mean, I wouldn’t laugh if they weren’t funny, right? -_-
Anyway, back to the story. We decided to make a human logo of the number ‘100’ to celebrate our 100th meetup during the event. The guys calculated we’d need 84 people to do that and asked anyone interested to join. We were leaving the room in a queue and there was someone counting us at the door. When I was going through the door, the guy counted me 32. My subconscious ‘self-talker’ self kicked in and I said to myself, loudly, ‘Oh noooo! I just failed for a single point!!’
PAUSE!!
You need some context. In Bangladesh, starting from first grade throughout high school, usually even in college, all conventional exams are evaluated in 100 marks and 33 is the minimum passing score. Any less then 33, you failed.
Okay, lets resume. So there I was, being counted 32 and saying ‘Oh noooo! I just failed for a single point!!’. In the very next moment, someone from my behind uttered in joy ‘Oh yeah, I passed! Yee!’ - or something very similar. I turned around and it was Lyric Apu!
Her name is a mystery. Everyone hearing her name for the first time is like, ‘waaait a second! Is that your real name though?’. What’s more interesting, I stumbled upon her Facebook profile the other day and noticed most of her post was lyrics from folk songs. Next time I meet her, I’m gonna ask, ‘wait, are those your real post? Or do you post them to keep the theme going? Lol’
Anyway, she turns out to be a very dedicated member of the community. She had a session where she shared her experience, her inspiring story of working as a Local Guides etc. She’s a true north star, especially for the female members in the community.
We had some scattered conversation throughout the day. It was a nice experience meeting her through my subconscious self-talking self (there are at least some benefits of the wiredness) and I hope to see her again in the future meetup.
I’ve met some other great people as well, but the post has already grown quite big. Plus, If I add in the factor that I have an evil tendency of not finishing any of my writing, I think I should better stop here today. If you wish to learn more about the event, check out this recap post about it.
I’m posting for the first time and I’m really not sure if this format of writing is a good fit here. I’d really really appreciate your feedback on it and if it turns out fine, I might even consider writing more in the future!
Thanks a ton for your time! Happy Local Guiding! ?
