Bangladesh

June 2000

Biman (Bangladesh) Airways left Calcutta on time at 8.50am! The short flight (which was a freebie for us – included in the Dhaka-Yangon-Bangkok circuit for $300 – you can only fly in and out of Myanmar) crossed over endless miles of rivers, flooded fields and water. Immigration didn’t like our visas – unreadable, but since the Bangladesh consul in Calcutta had issued them, it wasn’t our problem. Picking up our packs, I discovered that my padlock and chain had been stolen from a top pocket. I was dumping them anyway.

I’ve never met anyone who has visited Bangladesh, or ever wanted to, and now having spent a week here, I can see why.

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh is only 30 years old. The Bay of Bengal, the Gangetic plains of India and the forests of Myanmar surround it. The country is primarily a low-lying plain of 144,000 sq. km criss-crossed by rivers. A flat fertile deltaic land flooded during the monsoon period. The climate is sub-tropical. Agriculture dominates the economy (it sure as hell isn’t tourism). Major products include rice, jute, wheat, potato, pulse, sugarcane, tea and tobacco. Cigarettes were 6 pence a packet. Diesel/petrol was 17 pence a litre.

There were hoards of people outside the airport terminal, barricaded off by high iron fences. Not much hassle from taxi drivers, we walked to the main road and caught a local bus to downtown Dhaka. On board, I got talking to a passenger who was a staff writer for the British tabloid “Daily Star”. I didn’t like to tell him that the majority of his readers wouldn’t have a clue where Bangladesh was.

My first impression of Dhaka was the horrendous traffic. Either bicycle or motorised rickshaws. The locals bombarded us with “where are you from?” “Ah England, very good” or “hello man”, ”hello brother”. We were the token tourists. We saw no other westerners anywhere over the next week (even at the airport). The Dhaka residents were more laid back than the Indians – they would come up and shake your hand and leave. Later on, we got the rural reaction which was a nightmare.

Essential words to know in Bangladesh: ‘Jan!’ – go away, ‘Khoto’ – how much?, ‘Bhalo’ – good (not used much), ‘Kharap’ – bad (surprisingly close to ‘crap’), ‘Paikhana kothai ache?’ – where is the toilet? (usual answer – what toilets?)

Downtown, it was like a Grand Prix in bicycle rickshaw drivers. I had never seen bicycle gridlock before. Apparently, there are 300,000 licensed drivers and another 600,000 illegal drivers. With a population of 9 million, Dhaka is the rickshaw capital of the world – about on rickshaw to every 8 or 9 residents. They don’t mind and say that at least pollution is keep lower by less motorised vehicles. These vehicles are highly decorated with religious symbols (they need all the luck they can get) and movie stars. The temperatures never dropped below 26”c and rose to 34’C during the day. Very humid.

If you want to create Dhaka in your own home, here is handy DIY guide. You will need: the largest room in your house, 6 kettles, a lawnmower, your rubbish, every kid on the block with a peddle cycle.

I guarantee that before the hour is up, you will have a divorce on your hands and will have throttled many children. Sounds like fun eh? We had a week of this! Surprisingly, there were no loose cows wandering around. No Hindus, just Muslims. Therefore no alcohol either which you really need to cope with this country (hence the Tequila).

The beggars here were the most pitiful I had ever seen. Not many women and children, but lots of males with deformed bodies. I saw a hunchback almost doubled over from the curvature in his spine. Another with a whole leg suffering from elephantitus (his ankle was a foot wide). Others laying on the ground with stumps for limbs - both hands and legs (how did they get to their begging spot?). I saw a women with an old man in her lap. He looked dead.

Dhaka is an exhausting place to walk around. Negotiating traffic, the noise and people yelling at us was a nightmare. The places we needed to visit were also miles apart. A tip if you come: bring a tank with a large flame-thrower to tease the traffic. If it is gridlocked (and it will be), just run them over. It was like dodgems at the funfair. At junctions, they just ran into the back of the next one. They came at us from all angles.

Our major reason for visiting Dhaka was to get a Myanmar visa for the next country. The Embassy was stuck miles out in the suburbs. We decided to hire a rickshaw driver. Big mistake. They understand no English and only seem to know one road. We jumped on. 90 minutes later, the poor sod was still peddling. We asked 10 people for directions (1 understood English). When we got a local to tell the driver where we wanted to go, he would peddle off and 3 minutes later (as if suffering from Alkhaimers disease) look back at us with “now where to?”. We abandoned him and found our way on foot. A lot faster.

Dante’s Inferno missed one level of hell. That of spending the rest of eternity on the back of a rickshaw going around Dhaka with a destination in mind but with a rickshaw driver who can’t speak English and gets lost at the end of his road. Near our hotel, we asked at a police station for a local bus to the airport. 5 of them discussed it for 5 minutes. The relevant bus stop was 100 feet away.

Ironically, the Myanmar Embassy was the most enjoyable part about Bangladesh. (despite having to get 4 photocopies of passports and 5 photos). The Deputy Ambassador sat us down in a peaceful office to interview us and gave us a state of the dictatorship talk. Since we were “intellectuals”, he was confident that the opposition party wouldn’t suck us in. When we picked up our visas 2 days later, an aide gave us a low down on Yangon – where to change money, the ‘market’ rate and what the best beer was. We were issued with a two week visa and a stack of tourist brochures.

Outside the Embassy, we discovered old English double-decker buses. We used these to get around Dhaka for the rest of our stay. The major problem was that the bus stops were a mile apart.

With the visa in hand, my only other desire was to catch the “Rocket” paddleship ferry for a 2-day trip along the rivers. We walked down to the Old City and after many attempts, discovered the unmarked “Second Class” office on the roof of a market area where mangoes were numerous.(There was actually a “Mango” exhibition with 29 varieties happening, but no one could tell us where). We wanted “First Class”. The helpful clerk told us it was about 5km away (sounds like an efficient company). When we turned up there, the next day, the clerk was at his lunchtime Muslim prayers. When he returned (in your own time), he told us that the boat was booked up for a week (both classes). Ever heard of a computerised booking system lads – more efficient than a hand-written ledger.

The hectic atmosphere of Dhaka made it very hard to drag ourselves out of our basic but comfortable hotel room with a good fan . At least Bangladesh is cheap. I only spent just over £40 during the week. Food cost peanuts. Pretty tasty too. With the lack of tourists, we found the Bangladeshis rather money grabbing. There were no prices marked anywhere. They would charge what they thought they could get away with, but knowing Indian prices, it was pretty much the same. We were used to this and argued constantly over prices.

There is nothing to see (and I never saw a postcard). But what there is costs pennies. I visited the old Lalbagh Fort near the Old City, which had never been completed since the original 1678 attempts (a bit like the country really), and we also took in the National Museum. An organised but ultimately amateur collection of historic artefacts, worn out stuffed animals and birds and a “War of Liberation” section on the war against Pakistan in 1970 when they gained their independence (and proud of it they are too). They had a copy of George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh” album and lots of excellent photos – one of which comes to mind: the white flesh of a dead female “freedom fighter” being eaten by wild dogs. There was even a highly decorated rickshaw in the ‘contemporary section’. Admission cost 2 pence.

With our visa secure and the paddleship cancelled, I suggested that we head north west on a ‘Magical Mystery tour”. While reconfirming our plane tickets we had seen a poster for the ‘National Martyrs Monument’ and the 8th century ‘Somapuri Vihara’ Buddhist monastery. We had no guidebook, so this was the best we could find to visit by escaping Dhaka for a couple of days.

Travelling through pouring monsoon rainstorms we emerged from our local bus at the Martyrs monument outside Dhaka (90 minutes to cover 37km). A bland twisted 7 strand concrete edifice, 60m high, greeted us. Started in 1971, after the Independence War, it took until 1988 to complete (any western company would have raised it in 6 months tops). We were followed around by small boys who eventually backed off when I threatened to throw them into the river).

We continued northwest towards Bogra over uncomfortable sand roads past flooded fields, low lying paddy fields and water dominating the horizon. No mountain climbers in this country. It made Holland look hilly. But the lush green vegetation was pleasing on the eye. A new long bridge looked like the only thing that had ever been completed successfully in the country. In the river, someone was covered in soap, washing himself. About 50ft away, upriver, someone else was taking a shit.

5 bumpy hours later, we arrived in the sprawling market town of Jaipurhat. The rickshaws here had changed from the usual two-seater jobs to a flat platform with two narrow benches on it. Large enough to fit two tourists or six locals. The only hotel (not that anyone understood the word ‘hotel’) cost less than £2 for a double en-suite squat toilet room. We found a café that decided to serve us up with everything available – spicy meat samosas, spicy potato cakes with a boiled egg inside, cucumber salad, spicy mutton chunks with chapatis and a sticky sweet and tea to follow. During our search for food, an ever-increasing entourage of locals followed us around. When we entered the empty café, they all followed us and filled the place. They didn’t order anything, just watched us eat. Celebrity status again, but it was a relief to get to our room and out of public view.

The next morning, we caught a local bus 10km up the road to the ‘Somapuri Vihara’ ruins of Parhapur. Supposedly the largest ancient Buddhist ruins south of the Himalayas (8th century), it was disappointing to say the least. A large grass covered stupa brick mound (out of bounds) and surrounding foundations. It took 6 hours to get there and we spent an extended 20 minutes viewing it. Local builders were giving it a face job, but they needn’t have bothered. More interesting were the rural scenes. Locals with bicycles covered in locally grown bananas (still green). Men using white oxen to plough their fields with wooden ploughs. On our local bus, 3 goats were on the roof. How did they get up there? Or get down? Inside, locals held chickens and hens upside down by their feet as they fluttered their wings.

On the return trip, we changed buses at Bogra (“The Computer City” it said on a signpost – exactly where was the computer? I never saw one) where we were followed around by 100 men looking at us as if we had descended from space. Three tried to follow Jo into the toilet until I waved a fist at them. It was a nightmare. We were forced onto our bus for a 30 minute wait, while it was surrounded by peering faces, beggars and snack sellers, held off by the driver trying to give us a break. This town was so bad, it made northern India look tame. If you love being stared at, like an animal in the zoo, you’ll love this country. No one understood English so any comments were ignored. They just wanted to be near a western woman (don’t we all?).

On our last day in Dhaka, I persuaded Jo to jump aboard a ferry “just to cross the river”. After paying the 1p fare, we approached the jetty, which had 6 ferries, and we chose the best looking one. After 30 minutes we left and headed down the river. No one asked us for a ticket when we boarded. There was a prayer area for Muslims. The dozen men lay their carpet down to pray in the direction of Mecca. Of course, when the boat took off, the carpet was now in the wrong direction. It was fun to watch them try to figure out where Mecca was and constantly move the carpet. Ten minutes into the ride, I’m thinking this is good value. After 30 minutes, we’re sitting on the top deck looking at the flat scenery going past and thinking “where are we going?”. I found the captain, who didn’t speak English. “When do we arrive?” He held up 5 fingers. Was this p.m. or am? We had spotted cabins with beds and now thought we were on an overnight ferry – going where?

After 90 minutes, we finally got approached by a conductor (the only person who could speak English on the packed boat) who informed us that we were on a boat to Chundung , nearly 5 hours from Dhaka. We paid our 50p fare and thought “Shit, our plane leaves at midday tomorrow. It is 3pm, we are heading for destination unknown, can we get back tonight?, if not, can we get back tomorrow morning in time for the plane? We had no map. Two more hours on the boat into the unknown. There was a lovely breeze beneath the blue sky and billowing white clouds and an animated river to take our minds off the fact that we could be spending a second week in a country with nothing to do and where no one spoke English.

The waterways of Chundung turned out to be the cleanest, neatest place we saw in the country. There was a bit of a panic because they expected it to go under water within days. The water level was already 6” above the emergency level. A friendly rickshaw driver took us from the jetty inland to the bus stand to a bus heading for Dhaka. As we sped out of town (relieved to know we would make the plane), past well tended fields, he was taking no prisoners. He even had revolving red lights on the roof to make sure people saw him coming. We saw a wonderful red sunset. Passing the streams by the side of the road, I noticed that the only access across to the wooden shacks on stilts was a solitary bamboo pole held in place by crossbars underneath. There was a bamboo handrail to balance yourself, but you wouldn’t fancy the crossing after a few beers, let alone inviting Granny for Sunday lunch. She’d need a fireman’s lift.

I read the next day in the English language newspaper about the growing crime in Bangladesh. Chittagong, a major port down the river from Chundung had had 100 TONS of goods looted overnight from a ship breaking yard. They used 300 labourers to load it onto 15 trucks in one night. Professional or what? Five muggers in Dhaka had also been beaten up by a mob when they were caught. They needed police protection and hospitalisation afterwards.

On board the bus, I got chatting to a couple of men and had the most informative conversation all week. They told me that they had “admired” Princess Di for the work she had done to help the poor. Prince Charles was an “evil man”. They blamed her death on the English media. They were very honoured that we had come to Bangladesh. I told them that their ‘tourist’ department was non existent. They told me about the history of the Independence struggle from 1947 onwards, Pakistani attempts at genocide (3 million killed), and the final war in 1970. They had succeeded because the people had “character”. They were very proud of their democracy and membership of the British Commonwealth. “We like the English, but not the Americans – they don’t talk correctly”. Japan and British were the biggest investors. We got onto the subject of religion and marriage. “We have many children because we believe in the future of our country” (The population growth is phenomenal – 1971 70m, 2000 110m – currently a 3m increase every year).We discussed the role of women in Western and Muslim countries “Ah, but your marriages do not last. We are superior in that respect” –“yes but only because western women are equal – they can do what they want. Your women are forced to put up with what they end up with”. They envied India’s progress. “It will take Bangladesh a long time to catch up –only 25% of our people are literate” (which explained the rickshaw drivers).

Arriving back in Dhaka, we got a rickshaw ride back to the hotel. The streets were full of unlit rickshaws, which made for an eventful journey home. Relieved to reach our hotel, two ‘room service’ boys hung around our door. They were angling for a tip. The litterbin had been emptied and that was our service. The beds remained unmade, the towels not replaced. I gave them a pair of old shorts which I was dumping and told them to sell them. Thank you and goodnight. Jo completed the day by dropping her sunglasses down the squat toilet. The 5th pair that she had destroyed on the trip.

On Sunday 16th July, we caught a local bus to the airport. Boy, were we glad to be leaving. But not yet. We had a 3 hour delay for the 1 hour flight (which we found out later, gave the baggage handlers ample time to raid our backpacks – I had 10 new films and my Swiss army knife stolen - thankfully they left the used films and missed my radio and binoculars). Jo’s backpack was too smelly to bother with. With over 650 flights under my belt, it was my first major theft at airports.

Good riddance to Bangladesh…

Travel - £7.21
Accommodation - £13.77
Food - £15.27
Other - £17.46 (including $20 Myanmar visa)
Total - £53.71

Grand Total - £3401.25