A forest wrapped in deep greens, suffused in stifling silence. Once it was a wildlife sanctuary. Locals will tell you that even a few years ago they saw wild elephants, sambars, crab eating macaques, hornbills, mathura, bear and hog deer. This is what Kudumchhara forest was in the past. Today, most of them have vanished because of poaching and destruction of the natural habitat.

Still, the forest stands proud with its natural beauty. And inside, you will find a cave -- Kudum Guha or Parir Garta (fairy's hideaway), as the indigenous people call it. Babul Chakma, our local guide, said this cave is revered as a religious site for the hill people.

As we walked through the forest, we could see bamboo houses perched on platforms on top of hills. The typical housing pattern of the indigenous people. It was drizzling and small hill children returning home with firewood on their back.

I was accompanying zoologist Dr Ali Reza Khan. In fact, it is he who told me about this mysterious cave and asked me to come with him. We had come on a Teknaf-bound bus from Cox's Bazar and got down at Hwaikhong bus stand. There we got on a Chander Gari, the age-old jeeps that carry sardine-packed passengers. Harikhola village was our next stop from where we hired our guide.

The forest became too thick to walk through. So, we stepped into a chhara (stream) and proceeded. It was a difficult terrain, our feet bogging down in muddy sand. But our eyes were skywards, scouring the treetops for monkeys and birds. In excitement, I did not notice that five or six leeches were having good feast on my leg.

We walked about an hour and reached the cave. Its entrance was enveloped in thick bushes. Through the thicket, I could only see a peach black interior. I shivered with an uncanny sensation. And a kind of fear seized me. What's waiting in there? I decided not to venture in as my courage ran out at that moment.

Dr Khan came to my rescue. It's just a cave and nothing else -- no fairy, no bear -- nothing, he assured me. Finally, he could instill courage enough in me to step inside.

We had battery-operated torches with us. As we switched them on, wings battered and scrapped our faces. Shrill shrieks reverberated inside the walls of the dark cave. It seemed the hell has come loose and I ducked in horror.

The bats flapped past us into the daylight. We looked back and saw them flying in various angles into the forest. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Hardly any people come to this cave because of its position deep inside the forest. It's about 127 feet long, 25 feet high and 12 feet wide. It's a cave undefiled by any human intrusion. We felt the excitement of some discoverers. A strange pungent musty smell hung in the cave air.

We stepped deeper. A stream -- about knee-deep -- runs above the floor. We focused torch beam on the water and saw a motley school of fish. We could identify some koi, prawn, taki, shol and what not. They scuttled away from the beam and came back again with curious eyes.

We probed the walls of the cave and found birds and spiders, big and hairy with eyes blinking in the beam. We found bird nests tucked in small outcrops on the wall. The chicks cried for food, sensing our presence. We stood in water and watched the wonderful sight. And then we saw a whole family of Whistling Thrust. The mom, pop and their babies, looking at us, eyes round, baleful. Before we found their nests, Whistling Thrusts were believed to be migratory birds. For the first time, it came to light that this species is also local to this country.

Time ticked away. We cannot tell how long we stayed inside the cave. When we came out, we were exhausted, but brimming with a sense of fulfillment. I could only thank Dr Reza for prodding me into this adventure.

Story and Photos by Syed Zakir Hossain