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
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