To Chittagong

When we got to the Dhaka train station, we were ushered behind the counter of the ticket office, where the attendant booked us our seats. For our night train to Chittagong (Bangladesh's second largest city) we opted for the slightly less luxurious non-AC cabin. We were spoiled however by the ticket salesmen, who had reserved a private two-bed cabin for us (what a lovely surprise). We gushed about the lovely train to locals, who didn't believe that they could possibly be as nice as in India!? Hmmmmmm..... Arriving early in the morning in Chittagong, we headed to the strip of hotels around the train station, many mentioned in the guidebook. Of course, we had to first check out the cheapest of the bunch. We agreed to take the room before the gigantic rat scuttled passed the door in front of the largest cockroach carcass we'd ever seen. Thankfully the rats and cockroaches were discreet and this was the last we saw or heard of them. Other than the staff barging into our room unannounced every hour or so to offer us something, we were very satisfied.

The main purpose of our Chittagong visit was to pick up a permit for travel to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. An area of Bangladesh bordering Burma, whose non-Bangla residents have been fighting with the government for a few decades (more on that later). We rickshawed our way to the District Commissioners office, who issued us a permit within 30 minutes for all the areas we wanted to visit. We had expected a more difficult time getting permits, so we now had the entire day to visit Chittagong. Chittagong's main tourist attraction has long been the ship breaking yards, where ships from all over the world come to be taken apart piece by piece hundreds of Bangladeshi workers. The yards have now been closed to foreigners for a few years, due to tourists raising world-wide publicity for the awful working conditions of the yards' employees. We decided, that being the country's busiest port, we should spend some time at the water. We took a rickshaw to the main boat terminal following these instructions from the Lonely Planet: "You can hire a boat from the boat terminal to go across the river (Tk 20, 10 minutes)to the fish harbour and market. The Marine Fisheries Academy is housed in a new building with a small museum."

We boarded a boat taxi on a small dock, we were quite certain that we were not at the main boat terminal, but according to the map we were in the right place. On the other side of the river there was no sign of a bustling fish market. We followed a long pathway next to a tall, barbed-wire fence. We ended up at a dusty, empty square with a few small shops. We were greeted with looks of surprise as we inquired "which way to the fish market?". Someone eventually managed to explain that there was no longer a fish market OR that there was no fish market that day OR that the fish market was only in the morning OR that there was never a fish market here in the first place. On to plan B, to the Museum! Even more confusion about this one. Finally someone understood Fisheries Academy/Navy/Army and we were led through fields, onto the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Our local guide dropped us off at the main administrative building and said goodbye. We entered the quiet building looking for someone to show us to the museum. Someone eventually appeared directed us to a room where staff seemed to be eating lunch. An older man got up to talk to us: "You want to visit our museum?" (incredulously). "Ummmm yeah". "How do you know about our museum?" (now suspiciously). "Ummmm, actually its right here in our guide book" (extra cheerily). The fact that their Fisheries Museum was mentioned in an international guidebook was all it took to really perk people up.

We ended up in a waiting room awaiting instructions. The older man popped his head out of the neighbouring office: "Can I have the book please?" (we gave him the guidebook). A few minutes later he exited the office, quite pleased: "Ok, He will see you" (excitedly). "Ummm who will see us?". "The principal will see you!" (obviously!).

Now we were in the spotless, air-conditioned office having been granted an audience with the principal of the Bangladesh Fisheries Academy. We had a long friendly talk, the principal spoke perfect English and gave us a description of the school. We felt completely out of place in our grubby clothes but we kept it cool, even though we were thinking what the hell are we doing here? Once we had passed the examination, we were finally allowed to see the museum. We were escorted there by two academy teachers and one lab technician. The sign on the door said "Museum", which we suppose is how the writer of the guidebook might have heard of its existence. Clearly, the writer had never visited however. It wasn't a museum at all. It was the school's biology lab! A collection of fish from the Bay of Bengal sitting in jars, suspended in formaldehyde. We tried to seem as interested as possible, but there only so many brown flaky fish bodies one can be impressed by.

The two teachers who showed us around were extremely friendly and talkative. They were shocked and appalled to hear that we were teachers visiting as part of our 3 months of vacation. After taking a few photos with us, they called down to the dock to make sure that the military taxi didn't leave without us. We were given a ride back to the other bank, along with other employees of the Bangladesh Navy.

Rickshaws Through Dhaka

Our first afternoon in Old Dhaka was spent with our guide Jewel. He had a limited repertoire, so we followed him to the three destinations that he knew. Despite our usual reticence to follow guides, I had convinced Yann to follow him. The main reason for me wanting to follow him was the belief that it might cut down our time in the heat. We stopped first at Ahsan Manzil (or the Pink Palace), one of Dhaka's lovelier buildings, a short walk away from the main boat terminal. I was too exhausted to walk up the stairs of the palace, so I hid in the shade while Jewel and Yann visited the museum inside the palace. My rest was interrupted by requests for photos with me, and I spent most of the time in the sun posing, until a guard shooed everyone away. The three of us then hopped on to a rickshaw to the Sitara Mosque, a lovely little mosque a short ride away. The mosque gates weren't open but with a little shouting by Jewel we were let in for a private visit. The mosque is completely covered in mosaic, some parts restored by a rich donor (using Japanese and English china) and other parts original. Each of the four mosque towers are tiled in white and scattered with blue mosaic stars. We were warmly received by the caretaker who showed us Mount Fuji on the Japanese tiles. We weren't as lucky finding the caretaker of the imposing Armenian Church. We had to content ourselves with views from outside the gates.

Our last stop with Jewel was Shankharia Bazar, more commonly known as Hindu street. One of the last enclaves of Hindu craftsmen (shankharias) in Bangladesh. This narrow, rickshaw-packed street is home to dozens of tiny workshops. In our short visit we saw artisans making harmoniums from scratch and an old man carving bangles from conch shells. Shortly after we parted ways with Jewel. Partly because we were exhausted and partly because he had a head-on collision with another pedestrian. This left him very much confused with a huge gash above his eye. Despite Jewel's earlier promises, he demanded twice the price that we had agreed to pay for his guide services. This wasn't particularly surprising, but was disappointing nonetheless.

By the time we arrived back at the hotel, the heat rash that had appeared after our train ride from Delhi to Kolkata had pretty much covered most of my body. We had spent our first night in a room without air-conditioning, but after seeing my heat rash, Yann agreed that it might be beneficial to have it. This doubled our hotel bill, but was enough to get my skin back to a somewhat tolerable state. We had failed in our attempt to withstand the Bangladesh summer without using air-conditioning. It felt extravagant in a country with a dire lack of power. Millions would be attempting to get a good night's sleep without even an operational fan.

On our second day in Dhaka, we decided to tackle the city without the use of a guide. This required special planning due to adorable but extremely annoying "English speaking" rickshaw guides that hovered around our hotel entrance trying to sell us their full day tours. We left with an old gray-bearded rickshaw driver, who we knew would end up costing us more than it should because he was cute and skinny. He got us to the ruins of Lalbagh Fort, one of Dhaka's main attractions, elsewhere it probably wouldn't be given much visiting time, but in Bangladesh, the sights are few and far between, and we wanted to make sure to give them our full attention. We spent a few hours roaming around the unshaded grounds, there isn't much left of the fort, but the grounds are well kept, and we felt sheltered from the noisy and crowded city that surrounded us. After the quiet of Lalbagh, we headed back into the heart of Old Dhaka for a visit to Bicycle Street. We had no problem explaining this site to our rickshaw driver, its the city's headquarters for everything Rickshaw. Each shop specializes in some aspect of rickshaw making and repair. But what we were really there for was the rickshaw artwork. Nearly all of Dhaka's 400 000 + rickshaws are adorned with colourful artwork, on the seat, or as a back bumper-like flap. Basically every possible surface of the rickshaw has some painted metallic cut-out, plastic streamers of fake flowers attached to it. Popular themes include: the Taj Mahal, bloody Bangla movies involving big women and big guns and the serene cabin-in-woods scene (this one is actually quite sad, because it is exactly the opposite of everything that is Dhaka). We caused quite a commotion on Bicycle Street when we pulled out our cameras. Every single shop-owner, pedestrian, child wanted a photo taken of themselves. Men carrying heavy loads on baskets balanced on their heads would stop and insist that we photograph them. We could have spent the entire day there and the requests would have never stopped. In the late afternoon we headed to the sombre "Museum of Liberation" celebrating Bangladesh's bloody civil war with Pakistan (then West Pakistan). The country is extremely proud of its stand to protect its language rights, which were at the core of the conflict with the Urdu-speaking West Pakistan. We met a young man later who summed up his thoughts about his country: "We are very poor, we don't have very much, but we have two things, we have our beautiful language, and we have our religion".

We had successfully navigated ourselves through the incredible chaos of Dhaka for a complete day of sight-seeing, despite our inability to utter a single word in Bangla. In fact, our initial plan of bargaining for prices with a calculator was quashed on our first negotiation, when we realized that Bangladesh does not use the same number system as we do (this is actually the first country where we experienced this). So despite most of the rickshaw drivers unable to speak English (and many illiterate) we relied entirely on the help of strangers to help us get around. Actually we never even had to ask anyone for help. Within seconds of flagging down a rickshaw driver we would be surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, the best English speaker of the bunch (usually not too great) would somehow figure out where we wanted to go, explain it to the driver AND negotiate the price for us. Often the crowd would be arguing with the driver in our favor. Without fail, every time we needed to get somewhere, someone would appear to help us. We had a wonderfully pleasant day, despite the hot humid weather.

A River Cruise in Dhaka

We were up and ready to explore Dhaka by 7 am. We thought that this would be the best way to tolerate the heat and humidity of the city. Apparently we were the only ones with this idea, at least in the area around our hotel. All the shops were still closed and there was almost no action on the streets, in sharp contrast to our arrival at rush hour the night before. We delayed our departure an hour or so, but it didn't really matter, because it was already hot and sticky.

By 9 am, we were standing in front of the Sadarghat boat terminal, being swept away by a boatman, promising us a tour of the Buriganga river. I think he saw the hesitation in our eyes, because he didn't even let us say a word as he ushered us through the crowds of people and onto a tiny wooden craft sandwiched between too huge passenger ferries. Yann looked utterly terrified (although swears he was only slightly worried) as we slipped through the narrow gap separating the two boats and into the open water. The man who had intercepted us at the entrance tot he boat terminal, was in fact not a boat driver, but an "English speaking guide" named Jewel, who had subcontracted our oarsman. According to Jewel, his mission was not to make money, but to make sure that Bangladesh was known to the world as a wonderful place for tourists, "yo pwoblem is my pwoblem". Almost immediately into our river ride he began pitching us his tour of Old Dhaka. We didn't pay too much attention to him, we were too busy watching everything going on around us. There aren't as many boats on the river as there are rickshaws on the streets of Dhaka, but the traffic is equally disorganized and chaotic. We felt slightly vulnerable as we were rowed down the river next to boats that probably couldn't even tell we were there. We docked on the opposite river bank and visited a small fish and produce market. Right next to the market was a grade school, where Jewel's two boys attended. He was happy to introduce us to his children, who spoke the best English among their schoolmates. Within a few minutes of our arrival, it seemed like the entire school had come out to greet us. Women at the local market lined up to have their photos taken and shake our hand. A produce vendor threw potato peels at me until I finally understood that she wanted me to bring her to Canada with us. The village lined up on the edge of the river to wave goodbye as we pulled off. One of the most enthusiastic sendoffs we've ever had. Jewel then brought us further down the river to his neighborhood, where he wanted to show us his home. He lives in the ship-building district, where huge ship hulls seem to be formed anew by hammering scraps of metal together. Its unbelievable that these ships eventually become sea-worthy. Thousands of men, young and old, work all day hanging off the ships bashing pieces of metal together. You can hear the sounds of hammers clanging against the ships frames from every direction. Most of the local shops sell old ship parts. Jewel brought us to his friend's shop where men were actually building soldering machines from scraps. We navigated through the maze of ships and ship parts until we arrived to Jewel's house. One small room where he sleeps with his wife and two boys. A kitchen is shared between a few other families housed in similar one-room homes. His room was perfectly tended to, with all the pots and pans carefully hanging on the wall and all the family's possessions neatly tucked away out of sight. We spent a few minutes resting while the neighbors gathered at the window. Everywhere we visited, crowds gathered around to have their photo taken or to inquire about us. We were always greeted with smiles and laughter. Jewel proudly informed us that these were "his people" so we need not worry about anything happening to us. Although, he couldn't guarantee "full protection" on the other side of the river, back in Old Dhaka. This is where we were heading next. We had given in to Jewel's tour offers and decided he would show us around for a few more hours, even though it wasn't his turf and he was slightly annoying.

Montreal to Dhaka

We briefly considered a direct flight to Dhaka, until we saw the price difference between a flight to Delhi. We landed at midnight in the suffocating heat of the Delhi summer, spent a few hours in the usual cockroach infested room in Pahar Ganj, Delhi's budget travel ghetto, before boarding a train to Kolkata the next afternoon. Yann and I had been debating whether or not to travel in air-conditioned cabins (I was for it), but in the end it didn't matter, because there were no berths left in any of the air-conditioned classes. After a day waiting in the sweltering heat of Delhi, we were already exhausted by the time we boarded the train. In non-ac train travel, sections are divided into open compartments containing 8 berths. Six people, including us had already arrived in our compartment when a family of 5 showed up. Forcing our sweaty bodies to be that much closer together, I demanded to see their tickets, which of course they claimed to have, but never produced. After a brief argument, the other foreigner in our compartment began to cry. I blame the heat and exhaustion for my frustration, I watched the family all night trying to get sleep huddled together on tiny bunks, with the father curled up on the floor beneath them. By the next morning I was trying to make amends for my rudeness and was thankfully forgiven. The family shared their homemade lunch with us and invited us to have dinner at their home upon our return to Kolkata.

Even with a bunk to ourselves, sleep was pretty much impossible. Up on the top bunk where I was hidden away, there was no air from a window nor a fan. I lay rolling in my own sweat, soaking up all the dirt from the sheetless bunk, until I was a filthy, soaking mess. Yann, on the middle bunk did a little bit better. But we still had a long 8 hour day sitting 9 people on the two bottom bunks. By the time we arrived in Kolkata, I had convinced Yann that we absolutely needed air-conditioning. But lugging our bags around checking our hotels proved to be too exhausting and I booked us into an ultra-cheapie room with only a crappy fan and filthy sheets. Yann was perplexed by my change of room choice, but all I wanted was to lie down.

The next morning we had a bus to catch to Dhaka. No one at the hotel could confirm the departure time, but we had read that buses left at 5:30. So we set our watches for 4:45 and arrived in plenty of time to board the first bus of the morning (we opted for the AC bus). It took about 3 hours to travel the 84km to the India/Bangladesh border, we were surprised that the road linking these two main roads was barely the width of two cars.

Border crossing was particularly jovial, especially on the Bangladesh side, where the customs officers invited us to have tea with them. The Indian officers were a bit more of a pain, forcing Yann to go back through customs to change his Indian rupees into Bangladeshi takas (we haven't confirmed if this was an actual rule, if he wanted a bribe or if he was just being difficult) We were too worried that our bus would leave us behind, so we didn't argue too much (although I put in a valiant effort). As I filled out our immigration forms the sweat was pouring into my eyes and all over the forms, I don't know that I have ever sweat so profusely in my life. Yann was having a good laugh, claiming that he "loved the heat".

After getting our immigration stamps, we exited into Bangladesh, where we now had to track down our bus. We were faced with dozens of bus company stalls, all identical in appearance, all with Bengali signs. English seemed to have completely disappeared within the span of 100m. Being the only two foreigners on the buses passenger list, we were tracked down pretty quickly by the bus company employees who ushered us to the waiting room. We were soon joined by dozens of Bangladeshi men, who we believed to be bus passengers, but who turned out to be people coming to talk to us, or just get a glimpse of us. Every conversation began with "your country please?" and would end with "your relation please?" to which we would answer "we are husband and wife", great approval and nods followed by a "thank you thank you". The young boy at the bus stand taught us the Bengali sentence "Ami Bangladeshke volobasi","I love my Bangladesh".

The rest of our bus ride to Dhaka passed through similar scenery to that on the Indian side, on an equally narrow road. But when we arrived at the ferry crossing, we got our first view of the Bangladesh we had pictured in our minds: a vast muddy river, stretching out for miles, occupied by dozens of passenger ferries, fishing boats and cargo ships. The banks of the river dotted with thatched roof mud houses and children swimming. Not a hill to be seen anywhere. The children playing on the river banks were amazingly quick to spot us on the upper deck of the ferry and waved continuously at us while our ferry slowly passed them view. Other ferry passengers were eager to ask us where we were from and what we were doing in their country. As we approached Dhaka, our bus slowed down to a crawling speed. We had now been joined on the road by hundreds of auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, pedestrians, trucks, all honking. When we pulled into the bus company terminal, we had no idea where we were nor how we would possibly be able to navigate the traffic. We stood on the sidewalk for minutes watching the gridlock made up mostly of cycle-rickshaws. We weren't even able to cross the street. Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, a steady stream of pedestrian commuters were blowing by us (and the traffic), we were in the way no matter where we stood. Yann couldn't even utter a word, we felt (and must have looked) completely lost.

It didn't take long before a few people had stopped to help us. They flagged us down an empty cycle-rickshaw (there were not many of these available), a teenage boy who couldn't speak a word of English. Somehow our crowd of helpers managed to understand where we were going, and explain it to our tiny sarong wearing driver. Without a word, he dove into the traffic. We sped through the city, our tiny sarong-clad driver changing lanes and forcing his way in front of oncoming buses and cars. Under over-passes and through garbage-filled back lanes, our driver's shirt was now completely soaked with sweat as he rode his one-speed bike for almost half an hour. It was the most spectacular ride through a city we've ever had. When we finally arrived at the hotel, we paid him the demanded fare, 25 takas, that's correct, 40 cents. Five days after leaving Montreal, we were finally in Dhaka.