Week 19 - Bangladesh

Our travels through Beautiful Bangladesh

THE OTTERS! Beware!

Me on the otter fishing boat

We were interviewed at the Rashpumani Festival for Bangladeshi National TV

Marina! Beware!

Apnee Kamonachen!

Ok, I may have mentioned in the previous blog about how nice the Bangladeshi people are, well forget it! They are not nice! They are Phenomenal and could also be called angels and saints; albeit Islamic saints..

From the moment we entered Bangladesh until the moment we left, we were treated with the utmost hospitality, friendliness and friendship! It really seems that in this country of 150 million people that each and every person makes an absolute effort to treat tourists like family. I am sitting and writing this blog from Kolkata (Calcutta) India in pure amazement reflecting on our last two weeks!

The worst thing in Bangladesh for tourists is people are just to incredible. It actually makes it tough to travel the country, but in a good way. Everywhere you walk you hear hello friend (and our experience was these people were just being friendly), which then turns into their interest about you. Its difficult to accept all the invitations for tea, dinner, meeting ones family, and even staying the night. Its just not possible to actually see the "sites" if you go with everyone.

Not once did I feel concerned or worried, these people are just nice. I'm sure there are a few bad apples, but at times I said to Marina, of course we can walk down this dark alley, as if someone would do anything in Bangladesh and if they would, like the other 30 people around wouldn't stop him.

My good friend Matt Thorogood pointed out to me that Lonely Planet (the worlds main travel guide book) recommends Bangladesh as the 2011 best place to go for value for money. They also commented that it has the world's friendliest people and I can testify to this.

HOWEVER, one funny anomoly occurs in Bangladesh; whats with the Gingers (red-heads)??? So its a very funny situation, they dye their hair and beards red.. for beauty, sorry you red haired people, but I'm sure you will agree its quite funny seeing old Islamic men in religious clothing with red beards and hair - I mean bright red! :D

Let me give you a travel tip - go to Bangladesh NOW! Before it changes or gets touristy - only on a handful of occassions we saw foreigners in the 15 days there.

So where have we been: Kulna > Bagerhat > Narail > Sunderbans > Jessore

Sunday - Trip preparations: Simply we were very lucky to book our trips due to the Eid holiday. But this was a very productive day

Monday - Bagerhat: We spent the day seeing the old mosques of Bagerhat. Most from the 1500's and in quite good condition. In Bangladesh there are brick factories galore. You may recall from the last blog how we visited one. All of Bagerhat's old mosques are constructed from high quality (it must be to stay in good condition) Bangladeshi bricks. We had a great time going with different rick-shaw drivers around the town after lunch we accepted an invitation from a nice local to visit his house and meet his family.

Tuesday - Otters: Let me elaborate, when I say Otters, I mean Otter fishing!! Yeah that's right! For those that are not familiar with the kind of ancient (at least several hundred years) way of fishing - for fish... We hired a nice 13 meter (40ft) boat with four crew members all to our self and started north up the main river of Kulna. Just the ride itself was worth the price of admission as we saw sublime forests, crocodiles, hundreds of river dolphins, thousands of friendly faces smiling, people waving, and some close enough to say Hello! We got to the village, which was absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Many of the locals and especially the children came to greet us. We then waited until the night and we left at 130am. We boarded the boat with the four fisherman and our guide and they let the otters out of the box. The three cute, grey otters jumped out and proceeded to play. We were told not to treat them to nicely as they have a mean bite so we kept our distance. What the otters are for is to scare the fish into the nets. So the otters play, hunt and scare the living daylights out of the fish so they move towards the nets. Now these are Bangladeshi river fish which on this occasion were minnows; I think one fish they caught was the size of my hand.. All in all, this was the greatest moment of our time in Bangladesh, being fed like kings, the people along the river and seeing the age old tradition of otter fishing.

Wednesday - Eid: This is one of Islams two main celebrations; the time when many people join the Hajj and go to Mecca. In Bangladesh, pretty much EVERY family purchases a cow to sacrifice. They kill the animal themselves as instructed in the Koran and divide the meat among their family and the poor of their area. On our way back to Kulna after otter fishing, we were invited to a village to witness this. The village chairman (kind of the mayor) waited for the sacrifice of the cow for us to join. Let me say it wasn't a pretty site and yes I did turn my head at the moment of seeing lots of blood. The means was a knife to the throat as about five men hold the cow down. It was cruel, but it is the cycle of life and it was certainly an honour to witness this with the village.

Thursday to Sunday - The Sunderbans: We booked a four night cruise to visit Bangladesh's famous Sunderbans Mangrove forest. Its the largest Mangrove forest in the world and home to hundreds of Bengal tigers! The main highlight of the trip (just as the main highlight of being in Bangladesh) was the people. There were about 50 passengers, including a General, a major, doctors, lawyers, large business owners and even a folk band. Oh, and a Colonal who we spent time with on another boat which was party of the tour. We sat with the general one night and he told us about the Pakistani war when he was a young officer and had to report on the American Battleship entering the Sunderbans waters. He told us; "I responded on the radio to confirm we had the battleship in our sites and had many men which could stop it if ordered". The response from headquarters was hysterical laughter. Then he realised the funniness of his statement. His militia consisted mostly of farmers and fisherman. In the Sunderbans we didn't see any tigers, but we did see dozens of deer. We also joined the Rashpuniman Hindu festival which was mostly a performance by our band for the fisherman who would be there for the next five months. These fisherman leave their homes and go work for this period for 13000 Taka (about $200) for the entire period.

Monday - dinner at the MPs: On the bus ride a week earlier we met a very friendly lawyer named Sadat; yes, there are a few friendly lawyers in the world; maybe all in Bangladesh; haha :D We were going to Jessore his home town this day and we kept in touch since meeting. There he invited us to his parents home (he was back from Dhaka for the Eid celebrations). His father was previously a member of Bangladeshi parliament. We had a great night dining with his family and hearing more about their lives and how it is in Bangladesh. Marina and I had a great time and it was a terrific cap to the trip.

So what is next: We are now in Kokata until the 26th when we fly to the Andamen islands for some sun, fun and SCUBA! We can't wait and see this as our true vacation on this trip! We then fly to Chennai (Madras) and then train it to Kerala and then up to Goa.

Until next time,

the Campbells

Week 18 - Bangladesh

Just a small crowd; talking to one quickly becomes 25!


The local bootlegger!


A normal day in Dhaka - gotta love rickshaw traffic!


The Pink Palace or Ahsan Manzil


Marina picking tea at the plantation

Apnee Kamon Achen!!!

So if there has been one major unexpected country to be great - its Bangladesh!!!

Japan was fabulous, but Bangladesh has something on all of them, you never saw it coming. Firstly they have the friendliest people of all Asian countries, which means the friendliest people in the world as far as I'm concerned!!!

Tell me... Are you afraid of crowds?? Well Banglaedesh is certainly NOT your place then! Not just because its the most densly populated country in the world (excluding small city/countries like Singapore), or because Dhaka (the capital) is the 9th most populated city in the world, but because every time you speak to a local, it quickly becomes a crowd who are so friendly and eager to listen and talk - when I say crowd, anywhere from 10-40 people! No joke, its very common for you to be on the street and within a minute have thirty people next to you, just interested in why you are visiting Bangladesh and how they can help you! And they expect nothing, they are just some of the most hospitable people towards foreigners that exist. Now I'm sure you are saying your countries are friendly, but let me tell you, these guys are poor! Its the third poorest country in Asia and the way it seems sometimes, it could be number one! And still; these people are so incredable!!

Let me you a few things about Bangladesh:
Besides its high population of 150 million people, its in a country the size of England & wales - maybe the size of Montana for the American viewers. Bangladesh is has the 4th highest population of muslims of any country. The main mode of city transport is by rickshaws or motor rickshaws which is essentially a tuk-tuk. Looking at the stats, there are probably about 600,000 rickshaws in Dhaka alone - so you can imagine how crazy this looks!

Despite the praises, Bangladesh is not for someone looking for a chilled holiday - being a third world country there are many challenges, but with pretty much every person smiling and waving, its difficult to really care about the hardships.

The Power of Being Foreign: So... where do I begin, we have walked straight into the backroom of the following places, National ID office (where they make national ID cards), the passport and immigration office (visas, etc), and numerous factories where its not a big deal for us to just walk straight into the CEO's office and ask for a tour and he would kindly ablige! We have been absolutely treated like celebrities! One funny thing, in all these places, its very rare to see a computer and all is done by hand - so people who know english really try to perfect their handwriting - which is excellent might I add. And most people know English; even rickshaw drivers know a bit!

Bangladesh is certainly a hidden gem!

So what have we been up to;

Dhaka > Srimangal > Dhaka > Kulna

Monday: Nepal and its dodgyness - As you probably noticed on the last post, we were not too impressed with Nepal. Having travelled frequently I've seen quite a few scams, but not one like this. Nepal's airport and planes are kind of like their buses - they squeeze everyone on they can. The plane was the same - they have two fake companies that each run on a day apart - so we showed up for tickets to one, but it didn't run that day - so they just try and squeeze you on the other, its essentially a way of getting it full. We were lucky, but other tourists, had to go back to Kathmandu and stay the night. So once on, Marina had a ticket for 1st class, me in cattle and then I just moved up - then came a wave of people without a seat. It was pretty crazy and silly, but what did I expect from Nepal.. We eventually made it to Dhaka!

Tuesday: The Liberation museum - I'm always interested to find out new things that I hadn't learned about when living in America. You may know and I was just not paying attention in 1971 (not that I was born then), but have you heard about the Pakistani genocide on Bangladesh? It was about a one year war where Bangladesh (being called East Pakistan when separated from India) was trying to salvage its culture and rebelled against Pakistan. Millions were killed including a large number due to ethnic cleansing or to make a point. I had not heard of this before and am still surprised its not being talked about publicly by the Hague. On a more positive note, this was our first taste of crazy Dhaka. That day we also visited a mosque with true Bangladeshi style, they took me up to the top and all over the closed areas of Bangladesh's nation mosque - called Baitul Mukarram.

Wednesday: Patience, Axel Rose has not been to Dhaka! - The past two days we had been trying to gain approval for a change of route permit. A silly document needed if you leave via another port (for us, anywhere other than Dhaka). So it took us quite a few hours each day to get this. Before it was approved, I went into the back room and visited with probably about every person that worked for this department in the building - I mean about 20 rooms of people! So its a silly document, but necessary to get or face being refused to leave. Yes, I thought about bribing them and the visa for us both was $100 - so I would expect the bribe would need to be a few multiples of this... ;D Also this day, we met a local named Imran who brought us around to some of his student's house and we got to see what normal Bengali's live like.

Thursday: Bootlegging - We had taken the train to Srimangal this day. Srimangal is the gorgeous tea plantation area of Bangladesh. For the day we had a tour around the plantations, meeting many of the Hindu workers they employ for $1/day to pick the tea leaves. We also drove past an elephant which was walking down the road - having finished work for the day (hauling trees) and the owner gave us a ride on it! Pretty fun! That night was the crazy part. As we finished the tour we went to a place where they sell illegal alcohol. Bangladesh is not like Turkey, you cannot get beer or alcohol in restaurants or much else anywhere. At the Sheraton hotel in Dhaka they sell cans of Heineken for $10, but we passed on this.... So there in Srimangal we bought a half liter of this moonshine for $2! Look at the picture - it was out several km or miles in the country and in this house - more like a hole that was lit by candles! :D

Friday: Gibbons - This day was our tour around Lowacherra national park. There we saw several cute, shy gibbons jumping from tree to tree. Also, we went to a minority village to see how they lived. Might I add, better than many of the people in Dhaka! This village sold beetle nut and leaves - kind of like a south Asian chewing tobacco - so they probably did ok.

Saturday: Boat fire on the Ganges: Well its not called the Ganges in Bangladesh, but its the same river. One more for needing patience in Bangladesh. We arrived at 0830 yesterday for our bus journey south to Kulna. The bus left at 1600 - apparently due to traffic! We then arrived to our destination at 2am the next day! On the way, we had to board a boat to cross the Ganges river (called Padma) as there is not a bridge so they have ferries. Our ferry caught fire - not horribly but they had to turn around and we had to wait to get another ferry. Crazy Bangladesh!

So what are we up to next! So today we booked our tour of the Sunderbuns - the world's biggest mangrove swamp/forest! We are going there on the 18th and hope to do some cool stuff beforehand, but that is yet to be organised. We will also be doing a day trip to Bagerhat.

So until next time!

Dan and Marina

Week 17 - Nepal

Children singing for Divali

Enjoying a romantic rickshaw ride

THE BEAR!!!!

In the game reserve - surely the tigers were just behind the grass! :0

Our route around Nepal

Namiste!!!

Today is our last day in Nepal and it has been a bizarre place! At first we really were not big fans of Nepal - as you may have read from our blog. Dealing with lots of dodgyness and having to go to the root of everything you buy. We have actually cut Nepal short for this very reason. That being said, this past few days has been a good relaxing time and certainly the festival of Divali has been a main reason. We have also met some great Nepalis that have shown us that the people who approach you on the street or try to con you in shops are not the true representation of the country.

In reflection of our past two weeks, its certainly an experience.It just takes a good few days to start to understand how things work. I really do think Nepal at one time was possibly one of the coolest destinations on the planet as they geared up for tourism quite a long time ago. What I think has now happened, as they really reap the tourist fruit for every cent, regardless of how the tourist feels. We have seen dozens and dozens of people who have been cheated, tricked, etc into buying trips which were not as told. Nepal will learn this will not bode well for their future. I do think its now overhyped, but still a good place to go. Nepal, is not the place I expected, yet it still has been a fun time and the trekking is top class!

One great thing about Kathmandu is the sanctuary area called Tamil. This is a bit like the Koh San Road if you have been to Bangkok. As you probably know from reading these posts, Marina and I are not the hippy type that just sit around, that being said, in this region of the world, a bastion of bars, great restaurants, and organisation of activities is well appreciated.

So what have we been up to; Pokhara > Chitwan National Park > Kathmandu

Monday - Pokhara: Pokhara is the northern city near the Annapurna circuit. After having spent the week trekking, we enjoyed the choice of restaurants and actually having bars to go to - along with changing the clothes we have been dragging around.

Tuesday - The Bus Accident: They say travelling on the Nepalese roads is certainly an experience, so last week, we had a bus break down, surprisingly they fixed it with a well known male prophylactic! This day, we had a bus accident. I don't think its that we are unlucky, but this is just commonplace and if you ride the bus a few times, something is bound to happen. So our bus slammed into the side of a cargo truck (lorry) and smashed out our windows - lucky no one was injured, including a baby which was covered in glass. One now funny example of the dodgyness of Nepalis is this; we arrived at the Chitwan National Park on Tuesday afternoon and decided on a hotel which we negotiated a fair price. The owner wanted us to buy his tours and we said, we would if he gave us a fair deal. After having shopped around we found the true price was about half what he offered. We had decided to buy another and when we told him he was not happy. An hour later he told us we could not stay in his hotel for more than one night. Being who we are, we just grabbed our bags and told him to shove it and that we weren't staying that night either then - this surprised me then, but having been in Nepal for 2 weeks and hearing other peoples issues, its all normal. Luckily, we found a hotel next door which was twice as good for $1 more/night.

Wednesday - Bears and Bears oh my: We were expecting a true African safari as it had been described like that in guide books, but for some reason they were not running jeeps so we had reluctantly purchased a walking tour into the game reserve. Now there are tigers and rhinos and many dangerous animals in this place so I wondered why we were going on foot, but we were there and wanted to see the animals! The highlight of the day, well two highlights were coming face to face with two Black Bears!! On two different occassions. You will see on the picture (note my camera is a compact with only 5x zoom) that this thing was close! Probably about 10 meters (31 feet) from a wild bear - which was hunting! Luckily they weren't hungry for human that day. I told Marina, we don't have to outrun the bear, just the guides :D...

Thursday - Indian Visa: Today we returned to Kathmandu, and were very pleased to see our Indian visa was approved, so the trip continues as planned.

Friday through Sunday - The Divali celebrations: Kathmandu certainly has become a different place during this festival. Which has allowed us to really enjoy these past few days. Friday, most shops and houses, painted flowers outside their house and there were singing groups of children and adults. Its a very festive time and it seems a bit like Christmas. During these days, many shops close and the chaos becomes very mild. People are dressed nice, the streets are cleaned, there are any fireworks and people just seem in a good mood. We went to quite a few temples during this time. One of which was the Pashupatinath temple - the most famous hindu temple in Nepal. This place was a myriad of bizarreness. Firstly we entered to see bodies being cremated along the river. Also, this was our first upclose encounter with the sadus. A Sadu is a Hindu holy-man. I'm not really sure why. Firstly, they cover themselves in ash, barely wear clothes, sit around smoking marijuana all day and beg for money. In the middle of this temple, on sadu took off all his clothes and bathed in the river (in front of 50 people). The river, which may have been holy, was full of litter and one drop of its water could probably pollute a whole clean lake.

So whats next, well are eagerly looking forward to our flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh this afternoon. So I'll tell you more when we get there...

Till next time; Namaste!

Dan and Marina

Week 16 - Nepal

Thorung Lo Pass - 5416 meters (16,7909 feet)!

Near the top of the Thorung Lo Pass - On top of a glacier!!!

Me and the baby lamb.... Moussaka anyone??? :p

The early stages of the Annapurna circuit

Namiste!!

We are fresh back a 92 kilometer (58 miles) that took us from 1100 meters (3410feet) to 5416 meters (16,7909 feet). As you would guess, the feet are a bit tired, but I can still use my fingers to write you - Well barely, it was kind of cold at the top.. But more to tell later...

So we are a week into Nepal and let me tell about how we have found the place;

When we walked across the friendship bridge - as mentioned in the last blog, we really stepped into a different world. That day, I didn't really realize what Nepal was and boarder towns are certainly not the best place to judge a country - those of you who have been to Mexican boarder towns would certainly agree. We saw considerable poverty compared to Tibet and China. Just a few facts about Nepal - its the 3rd poorest country in Asia, it has the 3rd worst infant mortality rate in the world, 50% of the population is literate, the water even when boiled can still give you serious diseases, but most people speak English...So I guess that makes up for it.. In seriousness, this country really relies on tourism. The poverty is quite bad, today we saw a mother picking flees out of her teenage daughter's hair. I expect disease is pretty bad having seen sores on peoples faces and the conditions they live in.
Its also a very strange country in respect to prices. Normally for a very poor country, you could live like a king on a little money - its kind of true in Nepal, depending on a few circumstances... Firstly, accommodation is cheap - we have paid $2/night to $7/night for a nicer place, but for a bottle of local beer, it costs $5 up to $8/beer - and I'm talking in normal restaurants. So drinking is expensive. Food is still cheap. And for everything, you need to be able to haggle - I mean everything, water, bus tickets, visas, airfare, etc. Nepali people have an imaginary price for foreigners, its lets add a few zeros on. When you haggle with them, even if you pay double the price they will act as if you have taken food out of the mouths of their babies. Its really amusing...

So what have we been up to;

The past week has been all about the Annapurna circuit!! This is one of the world's highest mountain hikes and it goes through numerous little Nepali villages. I'll tell you more about Kathmandu after we have seen the city in greater detail. We started by traveling to Pokhara which is a fun little town in northern Nepal near the Himalayas. This place was a great reprise from the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. Having organised our permits in Kathmandu, we stayed the night in Pokhara enjoying our last night of civilised life. We took a bus and a mountain jeep to the town of Syange (1100 meters) and stayed the night. The next morning we would start hiking. Now many people who trek or hike the Annapurna circuit hire guides and porters. By this time I expect you know how Marina and I roll... So we packed the essentials in our day packs (clothes, bathroom supplies, snacks, water) and tied our jackets and sleeping bags to the backpacks sleeping bags we rented in Pokhara. So all in all, we probably had about 4-5kg plus water.
Each of the little towns you walk through (about every 3-6km between towns) has guesthouses and they each have restaurants. The path is pretty clearly trodden so the only thing you have to worry about is carrying enough water, dealing with altitude, and getting to the next town to sleep.

The first day of our hike we hiked a grueling 34km up seriously steep areas - some of which we had to climb with our hands. On our typical day we would go at least twice as far as guide books would recommend; sometimes three. This day we hiked from Syange>Chyamche>Tal>Koto. Staying in Koto, we had to stay, Marina would have died otherwise (we were both very exhausted), but our room at the hotel, which cost us $2, had a perfect view of Annapurna 2. Annapurna 1 is the tallest in the range and its the 10th tallest mountain in the world at 8091 meters.

The next day was tough to start walking, but after an hour the muscles and joints were accepting their fate. This day we hiked 28km and reached our destination of choice, the bustling mountain village of Manang (3540 meters). When I say bustling, it probably has a population of a few hundred souls, but it was one of the biggest. During these first two days, our hike was through forests, on cliffs overlooking river rapids, across dodgy looking bridges, and through some of the best scenery around. Snow covered mountains all around!

Our third day on the trek was to Thorung Phedi going 17km up to 4450 meters. You can guess, by climbing so quickly one its tough, but two - you need to be mindful of altitude, so to ensure we didn't have any side effects we had a few cold beers at this level - I hear it helps.. Well, we also had quite a few liters of water at this level to help. At this altitude it gets cold at night. None of the accommodation is heated on the circuit so we slept in our cloths, in our sleeping bags, covered by several blankets. It wasn't the best night of sleep in the world, but we got a few winks.

Yesterday was summit day! Writing you now it seems like several days ago. So when we woke, it was snowing. We pressed on to the top called Thorung La Pass at 5416 meters. This is a pass between two 6,000+ meter mountains. The three hour climb to the top in what was now a blizzard was just a bit cold to be modest. When we got to the top, just like at Everest, we didn't want to stay too long. Also, given there wasn't much scenery due to the snow, we pressed on down the mountain. Near the top, was a gorgeous glacier that we climbed on - see the pics. As the snow was really thick, we hiked for about 4 more hours to the town of Muktinath (13km today). In Muktinath, there was a jeep trail. All the parts we hiked it was not possible to have a car, both due to law and terrain. So in Muktinath we hired a jeep and began our decent in DRY conditions :D

After a sleep last night in Ghasa, hear we are now in Pokhara, happy, clean (they did have showers, but usually cold ones), and looking forward to chilling out tonight with good food, music and people around - who don't go to sleep at 9:30pm :D

So that was our trip - fun, exhausting, and gorgeous!!!

Tomorrow we are off to Chitwan to visit the national park and have a few safaris! After we are going back up north to the Bote Kosi River for some rafting and canyoning!