Jaflong is about 60 km northeast of Sylhet and one of the most popular day trips in the country. The scenery — Khasi Hills rising across the river, the Piyain River strewn with stones, and the bright dresses of the Khasi tribal people who live in the surrounding villages — is unlike anything else in Bangladesh. Small boats cross to the opposite bank and to the Indian border zone.
The stone-quarrying that gives Jaflong its character is also its environmental tragedy: heavy trucks roar in and out all day, and the river bed has been visibly altered by extraction. Visit early in the morning before the trucks arrive and the day-trippers from Sylhet pour in. A few hours is plenty.