2025 Ramu Upazila Travel Guide: Must-see attractions, popular food, hotels, transportation routes (updated in May)

This is a nice resort to stay in Coxbazar

#songkran2024

The temple Lamar Para Buddhist Temple, hidden in the forest, is harder to find than the others; it's very well concealed. Of course, the local tuk-tuk drivers can still take you there with pinpoint accuracy. From the name, it's evident that this is a Burmese temple. Entering through the hidden gate, you'll find a different world inside, with three complex wooden structures that are more intricate, layered, and dilapidated than any you've seen before, yet also more beautiful and filled with a sense of desolation from the passage of time. The building closest to the gate is likely the home of the temple's caretaker, where several Rakhaing people are seen idly working at the entrance. A teenager, upon seeing visitors, goes to fetch a bunch of keys. The middle building is probably where the monks meditate and recite scriptures, and possibly live. It's the most beautiful of the three, and after the teenager speaks with an old monk inside, seemingly getting his permission, he runs out to help open the door to the third building. Inside the third structure, a musty, damp smell prevails, and it's too dark to see clearly until the teenager turns on a dim light, revealing a gilded Buddha statue with a benevolent face in front of you, flanked by four or five smaller jade Buddhas on exquisitely carved pedestals. Perhaps due to the temple's antiquity and the dim lighting, there's a sense of eternity in the air, an indescribable presence that you can feel but can't express. From the outside, the building seems to have layers upon layers of complexity, but from the inside, it's just one tall hall. After leaving the hall, the teenager points to the middle temple, suggesting a look inside. Initially reluctant to disturb the chanting monks, you enter to find four gilded bronze Buddhas in front of the hall, along with many Buddhist posters. Unlike most temples' cleanliness, the area in front of the Buddhas is cluttered with bottles, jars, warm pots, and other household items, with an old monk sitting on the floor. Unlike most Rakhaing monks, the old monk seems in good spirits, allowing photography and even suggesting taking pictures of the Buddhas. Lamapara Bara Khyang also has an almost forest-covered bell tower, and the sound of the bell is ethereal in the woods. Back in Ramu, the town has two temples, including a brand-new one where a Chinese-speaking caretaker gives a detailed introduction to the temple's history. The highlight is the huge gilded bronze Buddha on the second floor of the main hall. The temple has several other halls, but they are newly built with light yellow walls and red tiles. In fact, the temple has a long history, but it was burnt down during a conflict in 2012. (For more details, search for the Ramu Violence incident). On the riverbank of Ramu, amidst a small grove, stands the most famous temple, U Chit San (Rakhine) Ramu Buddhist Temple. Before the Mughals occupied Chittagong, this land was always a Buddhist state of the Rakhaing people, and Ramu was even the second capital of a Rakhaing dynasty for three centuries, which explains the abundance of Buddhist relics here. U Chit San Temple is also a typical Burmese temple with a complex structure, crowdedly situated in a yard that looks like a small park. Entering the two-story hall, dozens of Buddhas of various sizes and expressions are worshipped, exuding divinity in the dim light. Scriptures are stacked carelessly on a cabinet to the side, and a few barefoot monks are undisturbed, calmly going about their business. Compared to the previous temple, U Chit San Temple has the solemnity, detachment, and mysterious atmosphere of a Buddhist temple. It's a temple with a strange charm, and you sit under the shade of trees in the outer courtyard for a while, enjoying the rare quiet. Another temple popular with local tourists is Bimukti Bidarshan Bhabna Kendro, which is also only accessible by tuk-tuk. However, the main attraction of this temple is a 100-foot-long giant clay reclining Buddha, which, for me, isn't particularly interesting.

About 14 kilometers east of Cox’s Bazar is a town called Ramu, surrounded by a dozen or so Buddhist temples of Bengalis or Rakhaing people. Some temples have a very long history, and there are some exquisite Buddha statues preserved in the temples. Going to Ramu is to visit these temples. Take a tuk-tuk from Ramu to a village called Ramkot to find the Historical Rangkut Buddhist Pilgrimge, about 5 kilometers south of Ramu. The Rangkut Temple has a slightly exaggerated golden gate, which is slightly different from the Burmese temples. In fact, the Rangkut Temple is a temple of Bengali Buddhists. The Rangkut Temple is built on a small hillside, under which there is a lush ancient tree, which is said to have been planted by a Chinese traveler named Hu Nsan in the 7th century. According to the host of the temple on the mountain, this Hu Nsan traveled along the footsteps of the Buddha, but I couldn't find any information about this traveler. Take off your shoes and walk up the steps to the small hillside, and find that the temple is full of local Bengali Buddhist believers. People sit cross-legged and eat vegetarian meals. The aisle next to it is filled with several layers of fruit offerings. It seems to be a local Buddhist festival. Next to the place where people sit, there is a small hall with a large half-body clay Buddha statue. Then the Thai host in the temple came over and introduced this temple in very standard English. According to him, the Rangkut Temple was built by King Ashoka in 308 BC, and even there is a Buddha relic in this clay half-body Buddha statue. I don't know whether the historical background of this temple is as long as the host said, but the whole temple is indeed very ordinary, the architecture is messy, and the monks' houses, pagodas, law halls, kitchens, etc. are crowded together without any rules. But regardless of whether the host is bragging or not, the Rangkut Temple still left a deep impression on me, because this Bengali temple obviously carries the enthusiasm of the Bengalis. Unlike the indifference of the Burmese temple monks to outsiders, the Bengali monks show all kinds of curiosity, show a strong desire to communicate when they can't communicate, and are very enthusiastic about taking pictures. The host even personally invited to eat, and after I politely declined, he gave a handful of tribute fruits and insisted on letting me accept it. After saying goodbye to the enthusiastic host and believers of the Rangkut Temple, I went to find the next temple hidden in the woods-Lamapara Bara Khyang, which will be a completely different character temple.