Chittagong’s streets teem with clattering rickshaws, the honking busses and of course, the bustle of millions of lives going about their daily routines. The city’s main arteries are intensely busy and congested, so much so that when you enter the quiet hilly neighbourhoods of Khulshi, you instantly forget you’re in Bangladesh’s second (and second noisiest) largest city. Once you step into the Hill Top Inn, the peace, the quiet and the shade of the main property’s mango tree makes one feel quite at home. 

The guesthouse actually comprises two separate palatial homes, whose rooms have been converted into guest quarters. The main block has three floors with three or four rooms each, and the South Khulshi building is almost identical. The properties are well suited for business travellers, NGO workers and visitors from Dhaka who seek personal service in a local residential neighbourhood — Khulshi could easily be compared with Dhaka’s Gulshan area.

In terms of stuff to do, Chittagong offers the normal gamut of shopping and fine eateries, although tourists would probably find their time better spent in the nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts or Cox’s Bazaar, so in this sense the city is more of a transit point than it is a tourist destination. But for the discerning traveller who has come to Chittagong on business, the Hill Top Inn is a great place to base yourself, by virtue of the fact it is low key, low impact, and doesn’t try to have hundreds of guests crowding its peaceful residential neighbourhood.