French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday took a boat trip on the Turag River before wrapping up his visit to Bangladesh.

Macron enjoyed the unscheduled boat ride, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud.

The French president was accompanied by Hasan and Saber Hossain Chowdhury MP.

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Hasan uploaded two photos on his Facebook profile and wrote, “Selfie with French President Honorable Emmanuel Macron after boat trip on Turag River, Dhaka. He enjoyed the boat trip a lot.”

"Privileged to welcome, accompany President Emmanuel Macron⁩ on a ⁦boat ride and discuss how Bangladesh and France can contribute to global solidarity on mitigation, adaptation and resilience building," Saber tweeted.

Macron went for the trip on a traditional panshi boat operated by Contic, a sister concern of Friendship SPO around 12 noon.

This trip was jointly organised by the Embassy of France in Dhaka and Friendship SPO, said a press release.

The Flèche d’Or (which translates to “Golden Arrow”), the largest panshi boat still in operation, departed with the French president from Mirpur's Bara Bazar Eco Park dock on the shore of the Turag River.

The cruise also traversed through Karnatali River which flows past Kaundia Union in Savar, to take in the scenic beauty of rural, riverine Bangladesh.

French ambassador to Bangladesh Marie Masdupuy, Friendship founder, Runa Khan, and high-ranking officials of the two countries also accompanied Macron on the trip.

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The organisers stated that this boat trip would highlight the lives and livelihoods of river-centric, rural Bangladesh and the centuries of culture and history tied to these waterways.

About 72 feet long, the traditional panshi boat of Bengal is part of the conservation and cultural preservation efforts of Friendship.

The wooden boat has a maximum capacity of 30 people and is one of more than 100 different types of boats that used to be common in Bangladesh as recently as the 1980s but have since become extinct.

The passengers also enjoyed various festivities including a boat race, a musical performance featuring traditional instruments and baul folk songs, and a live demonstration of local fishing techniques during their cruise.

About Friendship’s Cultural Preservation Programme Friendship has been preserving Bangladesh’s 3,000-year-old riverine heritage of wooden boats for more than 20 years through documentation, exhibitions, boat tourism, and by preserving the ancient designs in the form of handcrafted replicas made using the same methods as the originals.

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The French president arrived here on Sunday evening on a short tour at the invitation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

This was the first visit by any French president to Bangladesh in over last three decades.

Former French President Mitterrand was in Bangladesh on 22 to 24 February, 1990.

President Macron held talks with PM Hasina at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.

He joined a banquet hosted by Hasina in his honour on Sunday.

The two leaders witnessed the signing of a couple of bilateral instruments on boosting cooperation.