Before we headed to the bus station, we visited the largest mall in South Asia.

We went to the bus station and met Jen and Ben, Donny’s friends and our travel partners to Rangamati, a town in the hill tracts to the south.

Day 8: We arrived in Rangamati after going through 3 checkposts. Only us 4 foreigners had to do this. At the first, we wrote down our names and information in a big ledger. At the second, a soldier got on the bus, shook our hands, and got off. Then at the third, we wrote our names down in an identical ledger.

After a brief nap, we headed out for a walk. It was great to see scenes from calm village life away from the traffic and pollution of the city.

I thought our chili harvest from the plant on our deck was pretty impressive, but we’ve got nothing on this guy:

We kept walking and suddenly we heard some strange noises coming from a workshop. We were invited into what turned out to be a textile factory. Except the looms were all home-made and everything was done by hand.

After a while we came to a Buddhist temple where we were led around by some children. The kids then took us across the street to a Hindu temple, where we were offered food and some delicious sweet coconut-flavored rice pudding. The perfect end to a spicy meal on a hot day.

The monsoon clouds taunted us on the horizon, but fortunately it didn’t rain on our walk.

Donny, the former bridge inspector, giving this one his official rating:

But, we crossed anyway because, what else were we going to do?

After our tour, we got back to the hotel, went to dinner at “The Roof”. We were looking to get some local food, i.e. Tribal, or Adivasi food, instead of the typical fare we would get in Dhaka. Well, it turns out the roof was the place to go. We had some delicious dishes, and even the rice just tasted better. This local fare gets more inspiration from Thai or Burmese- style dishes. Afterwards, Donny introduced us to the Bangladeshi version of Sorry. Pretty hard to get playing pieces on the board, so it was a little frustrating at first.

Day 9:
We woke up, got some breakfast next door (avoiding the hotel’s restaurant as suggested by the guidebook for being “too oily”). Well, the manager of the hotel was having his breakfast there too, and seemed pretty offended that we weren’t eating at the hotel. “Well, you ate here, didn’t you?” Didn’t really sell him.

We waited for Donny to get back from the police station, where he had to arrange a police escort for our boat trip on the lake.
He came back in a CNG stuffed in with three armed guards!

Here they are on the boat:

The security issue in the region arises because of the very lake itself. The tribal people called the region their home, but the government later forced Bangladeshis from poorer parts of the country to resettle there. They also dammed up the river for power generation, flooding lots of arable land and displacing thousands of people. Today, the tribal people still rise up against the government, and take foreigners hostage. Our armed guards assured us that if they weren’t there, we would certainly be kidnapped.

We rode for a while, then got into some hilly areas that really looked like scenes from Jurassic Park.

We got off the boat to see a waterfall. There wasn’t that much water, but it was still pretty neat. And of course, we couldn’t resist the urge to start climbing.

You’ll notice that I’m wearing the two-dollar sandals that I bought when I first arrived. Talk about versatile! I haven’t worn my sneakers since I got here!

We got caught in an incredible monsoon. I know I say this every time, but this was the most intense yet! We pulled the boat aside and waited out the storm between two craggy cliffs.

Unfortunately, the rain cut our tour short, so we returned to the hotel. We went next door to the little restaurant to play cards, and I had my first cup of Cha. I was impressed, so I had a second cup! Donny taught us how to play a Bangladeshi version of contract bridge, which was really fun. All the Bangladeshis in the restaurant were watching us play, keeping count in their heads and everything.
We ate dinner at the hotel, just because we didn’t want to leave again. The food was actually quite good, but as the guidebook warned, a bit too oily.

We took it easy this morning, since we didn’t get back to the apartment until about three last night. We got up, then went back to Ayon’s for lunch. Farhan was there too, so we had a huge meal. Ayon’s mom is a great cook and a great hostess, she kept feeding us till we couldn’t eat any more, then put more on our plates.

Afterwards, we headed to the bus station to get tickets for Rangamati, then we took rickshaws through Old Dhaka.
Though there’s not much evidence left of what old Dhaka would have looked like, the gems that do exist are pretty spectacular.

After winding through narrow streets, Ahsan Manzil suddenly appeared in front of us.

Lots of effort has been put into the exterior, it’s just too bad the same hasn’t been done with the grounds.

Then we jumped in a boat for a river tour. This was actually incredibly pleasant. Once we got away from a big riverside factory, the air was considerably quieter and cooler than it was on the streets.

Afterwards Ayon and Farhan left us and Donny and I continued exploring old Dhaka, visiting the sights and smells of Hindu Street.
We had dinner at DPavement, home of “the best pizza in Bangladesh” according to Donny. The pizza was actually much better than I expected it to be, Donny even said that it wasn’t quite as good as it usually is. We tried to ask about the source of the name, got as far as learning that the “D” stands for Dhanmondi, the name of the neighborhood, but that was about all the information we could get.

Donny and I woke up early to catch our bus to Bogra, in the northwest. We got to the bus station and got our snacks for the ride.

Then we got on the bus, which turned out to only be a shuttle bus to take us to the real bus. A pretty smart system, since getting the big bus into the city center would have been a pain.
Riding through the countryside was actually very refreshing. Rice paddies and farms as far as the eye could see, very green everywhere. I’m glad we were sitting towards the back, because the bus was barreling down a two-lane highway, swerving around rickshaws, CNGs, and dump trucks, just narrowly missing inbound buses doing the same thing in the other direction. Not a place to put your hands out the window.
As we were driving, we saw some weather on the horizon:

And sure enough, we were eventually in the middle of the second monsoon since I’ve been here:

And no, the reduced visibility didn’t really slow the bus down at all…

We finally got out of the rain and arrived in Bogra. The rain had cooled the air significantly, and the city itself seemed silent in comparison to Dhaka. We took a rickshaw to the only hotel we knew, the Safeway. Unfortunately, all the rooms were taken, but the employees went out of their way to call every hotel in the city until they found one with a vacancy, booked a room for us, and even had their own driver take us to the new hotel. So while we don’t know anything about the Safeway as a hotel, they obviously have a passion for service.

We checked into our hotel, then headed to our first historical site. We stopped at a restaurant, judging by the number of rickshaws parked outside, a favorite of the local rickshaw-wallahs. The mutton we were served might have been the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten, and our mouths were just on fire for the rest of the afternoon. We also made the mistake of sitting next to the TV, which meant that the rest of the diners had to decide whether us burning our mouths on the mutton or the tv show was more interesting.

We then took a bus to Mahastangarh, where Donny asked a rickshaw walla if he could take us to “the historical things”. We arrived and toured the Mahastan museum and its collection of hindu and buddhist artifacts.
Goats roamed free, apparently a trend at important sites in the country:


We walked across the street to the ruins of a temple, then toured the rest of the citadel ruins. This citadel marked the oldest city in Bangladesh, parts of it dating back to the third century, B.C. We walked atop the boundary wall, when it all of a sudden ended in a village. We walked through the village, then into a market where we got whistled at … by a guy with an actual whistle. We bought a few mangoes of different types, then headed back to Bogra for a late dinner.

We got up the next morning, took a local bus to Joypurhat, then another bus to Paharpur. Once off the bus, we got a rickshaw to take us along a dirt road to Bangladesh’s biggest historical site, biggest tourist attraction, and one of its three World Heritage Sites.


The site features the ruins of a Buddhist monastery and temple, in fact, the largest Buddhist temple south of the Himalayas. The site itself is enormous, but perhaps the most impressing thing is how empty it was. We got there in the middle of the day, and as the afternoon went on, more visitors started trickling in. Our guide told us that during the busy season, in winter, the site may get 1000 Bangladeshis per month, and about 30 foreigners, mostly in large groups. In the off season, starting in April and running through the monsoons, the number drops to 300-400 Bangladeshis and 1-5 foreigners. So we may have been their only foreign guests for the month of June! Considering how difficult it is to get to the site, it’s not surprising.

Yet another goat munching away:

They let us climb up the stairs to the niche where a large Buddha statue would have been:

Our guide insisted that there was still a Buddha statue inside the hollow chamber. However, since the chamber is sealed off, no one has seen it. Sounds like the next Indiana Jones adventure…

Paharpur is where Donny and I saw our first tourist trap in Bangladesh! Compare that to the curio shops all over southern Africa or Egypt!

As we approached the gates, our rickshaw was forcibly stopped by the first restaurant owner “Come visit my restaurant! I have cold coca-cola.” We eventually were allowed to pass, as we rolled by three or four shops selling similar tourist kitsch (though none of it was really distasteful), then our rickshaw was stopped again, this time by the other restaurant owner on the strip, telling us to come visit his restaurant!
While walking around the site, we were approached by a “guide”. He did know a lot about the site, and was able to answer our questions. We also got accosted by a guy holding a bag claiming he had “ice cold seven up”. We were in the middle of seeing the site, so we refused. Then as soon as we sat down to eat some of the biscuits we had brought along, he showed up again!
As we were leaving, we figured that since there wasn’t exactly a surfeit of tourists, we’d see if we could get the restaurateurs to compete for our business. Donny asked the first guy how much his chicken cost. “Thirty Taka.” Then he asked the other guy “Forty Taka.” “But this guy over here has it for 30!” “… Forty Taka.” So, we went with the first guy. I wasn’t hungry, but sure enough, they brought out a plate of rice and a bowl of chicken.

Except… it wasn’t chicken. So Donny put the guy’s feet to the fire: “Is this chicken?” “Yeah.” “You sure it’s not beef? Because it looks like beef. And it tastes like beef.” “No no, it’s definitely chicken.”
Oh well, I guess that’s what you get at tourist traps.

Then we grabbed a tempo back to Joypurhat. This, however, had to be the most rickety one in the country. The entire ride, we were sucking back exhaust fumes… so much for our cardiovascular performance after that trip.

We tried to find a bus that was going back to Dhaka, but the earliest ones were still a 5 hour wait away. So we eventually boarded a local bus back to Bogra. We asked for a bus going to Dhaka, and were pointed to a desk. We gave the guys our money, and they wrote out a ticket for us, telling us the bus was leaving at 8:30, only 5 minutes away. Well, the first bus that passed by, they started shouting out to it, asking if it had 2 free seats. It didn’t, so they continued doing this with every bus that came through. Donny asked them if they had lied, whether they were just going to get us on any bus they could. “No no, we have a bus. We have seats on it.” They eventually hailed a bus that they said was the one, we got on, they gave the conductor some money, but then Donny found out that this bus only went “near Dhaka” which wasn’t going to help us that much. So we waited, they tried to hail a few more buses. We eventually got on a bus, and got back to Dhaka in the middle of the night. We grabbed a CNG home, showered all the soot off us, and went to bed.

I hope I did a decent job not sounding too negative in my previous post. The truth is, I woke up on my second day here feeling pretty terrible. I had a headache and my stomach felt like if I never at another morsel of Bangladeshi food that would be totally OK. Going through the day and visiting the sites was really a chore, but I did my best hoping that getting out and walking around would help me feel better.
Well, what a contrast to Sunday. I woke up feeling like a million bucks, like I could conquer the world. Breakfast tasted great, I was excited about heading over to Donny’s friend Ayon’s house for lunch, and I was just ready to go!
Our plan for the day was to go back to the tailor to see about our beach shirts, then see what we though about getting some shirts and maybe a suit made. We got there and the sheer amount of fabric that ended up unfurled at our feet was astounding.

Once we’d picked out the fabrics for our 4 shirts and 1 suit each, we took it up to the tailor so I could get measured (of course, he already had Donny’s measurements on file)

This shot sort of makes it look like we’re at a bookie’s:

Afterwards we headed over to Ayon’s for lunch. His mother made a delicious assortment of food, including Hilsa fish, a lamb stew, and chicken. She also had us try some home-made mango pickle. It was interesting because it was almost like our notion of pickling, using vinegar and spices, but this version required a cup of vinegar for every kilogram of sugar!
After eating, Ayon showed us some pictures his father had taken, including a black and white picture taken of the Shaheed Minar long ago. It was really interesting to see the pictures and how things have changed over the years.
Before we left, we were offered some traditional desserts, including fresh mango and two sweets. One was incredibly sweet, and could possibly contain more sugar than I’d eat in a year, but it was nonetheless delicious.

After leaving we headed down to Old Dhaka to get some rickshaw art. I’ll have to take a few more pictures of rickshaws to show what I’m talking about. Old Dhaka is in many ways similar to the rest of the city, in that there are open storefronts selling everything from trumpets to pipes to bicycle parts. The main difference is that the streets are much narrower, about wide enough for 2 rickshaws to pass. It was getting dark while we were there, so I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted.

Afterwards we went on an expedition to find tickets for our bus ride up north tomorrow. After visiting four or five different bus companies we found one that was leaving at a reasonable time, but it won’t be air conditioned!
The heat hasn’t been too bad, I’ve never felt it quite as intensely as I did in Luxor and Aswan, where the temps got up to about 120.

Some pictures from yesterday:
In line at the airport with Dad:

Side-saddling on a bike:

Skyline from BUET:

One of countless jackfruit trees on the BUET campus:

Construction rig made of bamboo:

Donny at the shaheed minar:

Dhakeshwari shrine:

Calm at the temple:

Football:

After I woke up early yesterday and ended up blogging, Donny woke up when Moweena came to cook breakfast. In the West, perhaps especially in the US we’re used to eating a completely different repertoire of food for each meal. Something sweet in the morning, like cereal or pancakes, a light lunch, maybe a sandwich or something, and then a heavy, hot meal for dinner. In Bangladesh, there isn’t really any distinction in the type of food served at each meal (different dishes might feature, but each is nonetheless spicy, salty, and hot). Donny was worried about me adjusting to the concept, so he made sure that Moweena made an egg dish not unlike an omelet. The flight left me with a bit of a headache, presumably a either dehydration or caffeine withdrawal (or both!). Since those two would give similar symptoms, but need opposite treatments, I figured my best bet was to just drink lots and lots of water and avoid the caffeine. If I skip it for a day or two, I should be able to recover from that. Plus, with the heat and humidity here, I’ve probably sweat more in the last 2 days than in the whole history of rowing practice. It doesn’t help that it’s not really culturally acceptable to wear shorts. Sure, we could do it and it’s not like we would be beaten up or anything, but no one else is doing it and it would just be offensive.
We grabbed a bus to BUET (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, the country’s top University and Donny’s home-base for his transportation research). Donny gave me the tour, including a great view of the city from one of the balconies of the Civil Engineering building. Off of one side you see the sky scrapers (though Donny told me the tallest building in Dhaka is shorter than the tallest in Raleigh, despite having 20 times more people) and from the other side, you can see Old Dhaka, which we will visit tomorrow. We then visited the Dhakeshwari Temple, the National Hindu temple. The clean, quiet, cool temple was a sharp contrast from the dusty bustling streets outside, and we weren’t the only ones to realize. Families and groups of people were sitting on the cool marble floor enjoying their lunch hour. The adjacent pool, however was not as clean, but that didn’t stop a man and his son from bathing in it.
We had some palm fruit on the street, which was delicious and juicy, just what we needed on a sweaty day like today. We were about to get on a bus to head over to the American School for a game of pickup football, but we decided we needed to prepare ourselves for the journey, so we each got a popsicle and refilled our water bottles. We headed to the American School, where the turnout was suprisingly good! We had 2 games going of 8-on-8, followed afterwards by ice-cold beers and some American staples like sandwiches, wings and cake. Surely this isn’t the kind of thing you’d do every day when in a foreign country, but for Americans who’ve been here for a while I can see the appeal of some familiar food and activities, and even for me it was nice to ease my transition.
Afterwards we headed back to Aaron’s apartment, next to the American Club, but we were absolutely exhausted from exercise in the heat. We called it a night early and got home via a rickshaw, a local bus, and a tempo.