Being the capital and geographical center of the country, Dhaka is the natural hub for the country's bus companies. There are several bus stations around Dhaka, and which one you need to be at depends where you want to go, so ask around before heading out to one of them. Most are as crowded as you would expect them to be(because of population).
Sayedabad bus station is useful for buses to the eastern half of the country including Sylhet Division and Chittagong Division.
Gabtali bus station serves most of the western half of the country including Jessore, Rajshahi Division and Khulna Division.
Mohakhali bus stationserves mainly to Tangail, Mymonsing and other northern districts of Dhaka. Sometimes also Bagura and other western-northern part of Bangladesh.
Luxury buses like , , and serve the major cities and tourist attractions. They all have a few offices around town, the most central being those near the Eastern Hotel on Inner Circular Rd in Central Dhaka, just north of the Motijheel area. Green Line serves Chittagong (400 taka, 5-6 hours), Cox's Bazar (630 taka, 8-9 hours), Rajshahi ( Tk 350, 4 hours), Sylhet (Tk 400, 5 hours), Khulna (Tk 450, 7 hours) and Jessore ( Tk 400, 5-6 hours) in its comfortable Volvo buses. It also has a couple of super luxury Scania buses to Chittagong (Tk 550) and Cox's Bazar (Tk 850) if you feel comfortable floating through a developing country in high style and have enough taka to spend(however the money spent could go towards helping develop Bangladesh more). Seats are huge and fully recline. The quality of these buses are comparable to Business class of an airline!! (there are also Hino A/C luxury buses as well as Volvo and Scania). Recently, the S.Alam and the Saudia, two of the leading (non-ac) bus service providers have jointly launched a Mercedes-Benz luxury bus service to Chittagong, Cox's Bazar and some other major cities. One of the ticket counters has been opened at the Panthapath, an area where you can locate all major luxury bus ticket counters.
From India there are a number of land entry points for Buses. The most common way is the regular comfortable a/c buses from Kolkata to Dhaka via the Haridaspur / Benapole border post. Private bus companies , , and others operate daily bus services. Government buses run under the label of the state owned West Bengal Surface Transport Service Corporation (WBSTSC) and the (BRTC). WBSTSC and BRTC both operate buses from Kolkata every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 5:30AM and 8:30AM, and 12:30PM while from Dhaka they leave on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00AM and 7:30AM. The normal journey time is around 12 hours with a one-way fare of Indian Rs.550 or Tk.600-800, (roughly $8-12). If you're only headed to Haridaspur the fare is Rs.86, or Tk 116. The journey should take around 2.30 hours.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Dhaka
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Dhaka - updated May 2024
SAVE up to 75% on Last Minute deals! Search for discount Dhaka hotels, motels, apartments, hostels, guest accommodations and vacation resorts. Book now and pay at the hotel. Instant email confirmation!
Dhaka Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
