Bangladesh

Ok everyone... we've been bad at this blogging thing for the last little bit because... well because we are traveling and sometimes you don't have either the time or the access to the Internet that one would like. We've also had alot of logistics to figure out for the (quickly approaching) end of our trip. Anyway we are back on the road and working hard to play catch up, so this post will be more in bullet points than in paragraphs... and of course pictures. Welcome to Bangladesh. Read the rest...
Bangladesh is a weird place with little (read-no) tourist industry, making getting around a bit tricky. Also its the most densely crowded country in the world... to give an example of how crowded it is if you took the world's population and put them all in the US Bangladesh would still be more dense. Tee odd thing about Bangladesh is that it doesn't feel THAT dense but it slowly began to dawn on me that there simply always people around and that tucked into every corner of the country side was another house. It wasn't a jammed place with no space but every inch of space they had was being used as much as it could.

Another interesting point was that Bangladesh is the first almost entirely Muslim country I've been to. Malaysia is technically a "Muslim" country as well but there were also Chinese, Indians, and some Christians there, not the case in Bangladesh. Their weekend runs Friday to Saturday, which consequently closes down everything... a situation that lead to several problems during our stay there. Another interesting aspect of Muslim influence is the great difficulty in buying alcohol (or so we were told), as no one can get a liquor license. But there are places where if you pay enough they let you into the back room with old Bangladeshi men sharing a bottle of Myanmar rum.

We arrived in Bangladesh, expecting monsoon (as it has chronic flooding) and we weren't disappointed. Dhaka (the capital) get about 18 inches of rain during the month of July and our first day there was no exception. We heard on the radio the next day that between 1.25- 1.5 inches of rain fell. We thought that seemed about right.

We actually spent our first day there wandering around the city. This was a fairly challenging task given the immense and continual downpour of rain and that the city is about as "old city" as you can get. Who needs straight streets anyway?

We spent some time on what is called "The Rocket Steamer," which turned out to be one of our highlights of the trip. The rocket is a diesel powered paddle wheel ship, that was converted from the old school steam variety (the original hull and engine were built in 1918 and the engine retrofitted in 72). We took it for a 24 hour ride and we were once again reminded why we like boats.

A view from atop the Rocket.

The first class mess hall. At first we found the whole first class thing a little elitist, we had our own dinning area a private deck, etc... But then we really began to appreciate it... Megan is writing more about that.

Us on the first class deck.

After taking the rocket for about 24 hours we landed in a greasy little town that the Sunderbans is next door to. The Sunderbans are the world's largest mangrove forest and one of the few places that still has the royal Bengal tiger still lives. Oddly enough the tigers eat about 6 people a year. Oddly enough the people are all "honey catchers" who go to get honey from locals bees! We didn't see any tigers... I was ok with that. However we did get to see alot of other animals along the way.

A grinning crocodile... he snapped at me later (thank goodness he was in a pen).

Part of the forest has a wooden walkway through it. It lets you see the forest without getting muddy... or that's the plan. It is only about 200 meters long and on the edge of the forest so you don't really see much. But fortunately you can journey a little further (not on a walkway) and hope to see some more...

These are called "tiger ferns." It seems fitting and I kept visualizing that there were tigers in these bushes as we'd walk past, it actually made me a little nervous.

An odd little fish that our guide called, "A jumping fish." Sure... a fish that jumps. He sat there half in and half out of a puddle but when our guide got a little closer suddenly he hopped-hopped-hopped about 4 feet into another puddle. We saw several more of these little guys are were continually amazed at them. Apparently they live a very frog like life moving from shallow pond to shallow pond and somehow developed an odd jumping skill.

The effects of monsoon weather and a dirt path. It actually got so muddy that we gave up on shoes to go it barefoot.

We have decided that Bangladeshis are the worst drivers we've met so far (including Indians). Picture everything done by the Cambodians (and others but we wrote about them) and then change the average speed of travel from mildly dangerous to about 45 miles and hour. So where as before we passed cars/tractors/mopeds on blind corners going up hill in a bus... now we did it going 45 miles an hour and swerving wildly. I haven't been afraid on buses so far since being over here but on our Bangladeshi buses... I was afraid several times. (One time when I was almost asleep I was awoken to a tree branch that was scraping the bus and leaves came flying in and landed on my face!)

After the Sunderbans we came back to Dhaka to pick up Jennie (Meg's sister) who was flying in to join us for part of the trip. Her flight in turned out being as eventful as ours, as it got postponed several times and eventually took off... only to turn around and land again. Of course none of this was communicated to us and we ended up spending 8 hours waiting outside of the airport (because you can't go in without a ticket) waiting for her. Finally she arrived and there was much rejoicing.

A happy trio on the ride to the hotel!

This is the inside of a "baby-taxi" which is really just the Bangladeshi form of a tuk-tuk (pronounce took-took, as in grad. school took alot of my time and took alot of my money). It's basically a three wheel cart with a motor cycle front and a back seat, it makes worlds of noise and is great for the environment (just ignore the blue and black smoke). But one of the nice things about them is that with a determined driver they can go anywhere. One driver we had didn't like waiting in traffic and would pass everyone... he drove on the sidewalks, he swerved in front of other cars, and there were a handful of times we were less than two inches from another vehicle (on the sides). The last point was also great because they sit about level with a bus' exhaust.

There are over 120,000 rickshaws in Dhaka. There were herds of them on most major street corners and outside of large public spaces and buildings. Oddly enough there are "officially" only 8,574 according to the government though. When one reporter pressed an official about the discrepancy of the amounts the official replied, "As far as the government is concerned there are only 8,574 rickshaws. If you wish to prove us wrong, start counting."

Alot of rickshaw drivers take pride and decorate their rickshaws. All the rickshaws are the bicycle variety as well.

Overall an interesting country, so very cool things but it was incredibly tiring... But Megan is going to write about that in our next post so stay tuned... (I don't know if it's possible to tune into a blog... but just check again in a day or two ok?

P.S. Because I married an architect... here are some architectural photos.

This is a 55 domed mosque. Its apparently an architectural wonder because it was made well... a long time ago (now I'm told its 1454). I actually found it less impressive than I hoped but it was still quite neat. Also the first mosque I've been in.

This is the National Assembly building, which was designed by Lous Kahn. It was a neat structure, intersecting angles and geometric shapes, it sits next to the "crescent lake" and is a source of pride among Bangladeshis. We wanted to go in or at least get closer but apparently they don't ever let you in and they don't even let you get near the thing on Fridays... and we were there on a Friday.