Meals are cooked aboard by a local crew through the passage — mostly fish, rice, and whatever the village markets had that morning.

Hilsa simmered in a mustard-seed gravy — the dish everyone waits for through the monsoon.

River prawns cooked slow in coconut milk — a dish shared out at nearly every meal stop.

Rice and lentils steamed soft — the crew's answer to a damp morning on deck.

A milk sweet folded with fresh date-palm jaggery, sold along the Godkhali road in season.