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The Bangladesh countryside

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Finally leaving Dhaka after more than a week, we took the Rocket boat ride to Khulna last Saturday night and, to our surprise, found our second-class cabin to be pretty nice – cleaner and more comfortable than plenty of hotel rooms we’ve stayed in on the subcontinent, and a major step up from what we’re accustomed to on boats from our experiences in Indonesia five years ago and the week-long, semi-disastrous trip to Timbuktu last year. In fact, the only problem this time was that the journey was too short; with foggy mornings in Bangladesh at this time of year, we barely had a chance to look out our window before it was time to get off.

We spent Monday wandering (and later getting stuck in without our bags, owing to the cancellation of all forms of motorised transport because of the national elections that day) around the small town of Bagerhat. The inconvenience aside, Bagerhat was quite a lovely place after the intensity of Old Dhaka. An enforced one-hour cycle-rickshaw ride through the countryside was very pleasant, and the scenery of palm trees, ponds and rice fields around the 15th century mosques and tombs was lovely as well.

60-Domed Mosque

Yesterday we embarked on the long journey (a cycle-rickshaw, a bus, another bus, a border crossing, another cycle-rickshaw, a train, and an auto-rickshaw) from Khulna back to Calcutta, where we spent a highly uneventful New Year’s Eve for the second time in the last six years.

Our brief experience in Bangladesh was a positive one, and more enjoyable than we had thought it would be thanks to Julie and our low expectations coming in (which were partly Julie’s fault to begin with, it must be said!). The extreme curiosity of Bangladeshis towards foreigners was a welcome change from the $-sign-on-your-forehead hassle of India, and it’s always nice to be off the beaten track. It’s not the sort of place I’d recommend, owing to the lack of major tourist sights and tourist infrastructure, but it was a nice way to finish the year.

The Boxing Day Test*

Friday, December 26th, 2008

*Bangladesh version

While it wasn’t quite the Melbourne Cricket Ground the day after Christmas, it was still a Boxing Day Test match all the same. This morning I dragged Wendy kicking and screaming to the first day of the first cricket Test between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Dhaka, half-fulfilling one of my remaining travel ‘goals’ of attending an international cricket match on the subcontinent. (I say only half-fulfilling because what I really want to see is India v Pakistan, in either country, and because Bangladesh are a pretty ordinary cricket team.)

Boxing Day Test 

Needless to say, there was the odd difference between watching international cricket at the Shere Bangla National Stadium and the cricket venue I’m more accustomed to attending, the Sydney Cricket Ground. Namely, that in Australia:

– Homeless people don’t live on the outer concourse of the stadium.
– There aren’t any furniture shops within the stadium. 
– You don’t get made to wait outside the gate after the scheduled start time because “we are not ready”.
– Temporary grandstands and ticket box office barricades are not constructed with bamboo.

As for the actual cricket, Bangladesh did pretty well and took the honours on the first day against what should be a far superior team, so it was nice to see them do well. Wendy’s impressions of her first live cricket match were not so positive, though; she slept through much of the second session and then declared sometime around tea time that “the whole thing is pretty silly.”

So, after more than a week in Dhaka, including a lovely Christmas Day breakfast yesterday morning with Julie, we are moving on tomorrow night by catching the ‘Rocket’ boat south to Kulna before heading back to India in five or six days.

The Bathroom-Tiled Taj Mahal

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

You may have read in the news recently that a wealthy Bangladeshi film-maker has just finished constructing a ‘replica’ of the Taj Mahal. (Actually, it’s not even finished yet, but it has just opened to the public.) 

We ... [Continue reading this entry]

Our double-life in Dhaka

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Market in Old DhakaIt has been a bit of a strange existence for us in the Bangladeshi capital these past few days. We spend our days exploring the old city and acting much as ... [Continue reading this entry]

Catching Up

Friday, December 19th, 2008

We've spent the last week or so in Calcutta and in the state of Orissa further south, and to catch up I'll post some quick impressions.

Calcutta is more pleasant than I remember from our 2003 ... [Continue reading this entry]