stuck in traffic Dhaka
Lalbargh fort, Old Dhaka
Stuck in traffic - Old Dhaka
On Dhaka's Buriganga River
Islamic school in the old walls of the city - spot my sunglasses
Buriganga river - Old Dhaka
Outrageous curiosity
The wonderful Abdul Rahim - more guide than rickshaw puller
30p for haircut & shave
on the buriganga river
its just like being a film starYou cant stand still here otherwise a crowd soon builds up around you! Often just staring, waiting of course for something interesting to be said, which invariably doesn't happen! Have been surprised by how little English is spoken, so our Bengali has come on leaps and bounds in 5 days, we know how to say our names, which country we are from, what we think of Bangladesh, and if they have any toast.
Dhaka has a population of about 14 million. Split into 3 x sections, Old Dhaka filled with mosques, a few hindu temples, a fort and narrow streets crammed with all sorts of shops & stalls, a mid town area where we are staying which has many banks, and finally the 'posh' embassy area to the north.
Our path has been effortlessly smoothed by Abdul Rahim, a rickshaw driver with impressive english and even more impressive teeth. On our 3rd day, we went out without him, and an hour later we were still trying to explain that we wanted to go to a travel agency - I was fast entering 'Meldrew' mood.
The highlights so far have been the day in the old town including a trip on Dhaka's Buriganga river - a pungent experience for sure - followed by a top notch biryani AND we saw a tourist, which was quite a novelty.
I had a wonderful shave & haircut for 50p, which included 3 new blades - Gillette is certainly not the best a man can get, and needless to say a fair crowd witnessed this. Men with no hair are considered lucky here, and I must say that right now I feel this!
There are 2 x excellent museums here, one dealing specifically with the 1971 war of liberation, all material captioned in english, very graphic pictures,newspaper cuttings, as well as some photocopied documents between Nixon & Kissinger, where the president instructs Kissinger not to lean to heavily on the West Pakistan president at this particular time, despite the fact that there is widespread killing & torture taking place in old East Pakistan. The museum also displayed a Pakistan torture box, where the captive is bound inside the electric contraption. As Ell pointed out, it would have been far more effective in a country not riddled with power cuts....' phew, that was lucky, I was just about to spill the beans....'
Its not just on the streets where people stand & stare - its also occassionally in a 'restaurant''. The waiter in the Pacific Hotel where we are staying, when I asked him for the bill in poorly pronounced Bengali, repeated it, started to giggle and then continued to stand there. This stand off took a few mintes before he realised that I really did want the bill. The hotel is excellent, 4 pound a night each with attached squat style bathroom, and satellite TV which was useful as we could see the Bombay attacks pan out over half a dozen different channels.
The aforementioned Pacific restaurant has a huge menu, with virtually none of it available. 'Toasted bread' or as they say ' a delicious accompaniment to any main meal' is never available so we have paratha with excellent poached eggs, though they are from what I can tell, fried eggs. The staff are really helpful, and we look forward to returning there later in the trip.
We hope we have secured ourselves a cabin on the famous Bangladeshi paddle steamer 'the rocket' - a 27 hour trip south which should afford us some breathtaking river scenery. We haven't coughed up the money yet, but have been assured that if we pay on the 11th December, then we will depart on the 15th....watch this space. In the meantime we have booked ourselves an AC coach to Srimangal for a few days amongst the tea plantations.
Dhaka has a population of about 14 million. Split into 3 x sections, Old Dhaka filled with mosques, a few hindu temples, a fort and narrow streets crammed with all sorts of shops & stalls, a mid town area where we are staying which has many banks, and finally the 'posh' embassy area to the north.
Our path has been effortlessly smoothed by Abdul Rahim, a rickshaw driver with impressive english and even more impressive teeth. On our 3rd day, we went out without him, and an hour later we were still trying to explain that we wanted to go to a travel agency - I was fast entering 'Meldrew' mood.
The highlights so far have been the day in the old town including a trip on Dhaka's Buriganga river - a pungent experience for sure - followed by a top notch biryani AND we saw a tourist, which was quite a novelty.
I had a wonderful shave & haircut for 50p, which included 3 new blades - Gillette is certainly not the best a man can get, and needless to say a fair crowd witnessed this. Men with no hair are considered lucky here, and I must say that right now I feel this!
There are 2 x excellent museums here, one dealing specifically with the 1971 war of liberation, all material captioned in english, very graphic pictures,newspaper cuttings, as well as some photocopied documents between Nixon & Kissinger, where the president instructs Kissinger not to lean to heavily on the West Pakistan president at this particular time, despite the fact that there is widespread killing & torture taking place in old East Pakistan. The museum also displayed a Pakistan torture box, where the captive is bound inside the electric contraption. As Ell pointed out, it would have been far more effective in a country not riddled with power cuts....' phew, that was lucky, I was just about to spill the beans....'
Its not just on the streets where people stand & stare - its also occassionally in a 'restaurant''. The waiter in the Pacific Hotel where we are staying, when I asked him for the bill in poorly pronounced Bengali, repeated it, started to giggle and then continued to stand there. This stand off took a few mintes before he realised that I really did want the bill. The hotel is excellent, 4 pound a night each with attached squat style bathroom, and satellite TV which was useful as we could see the Bombay attacks pan out over half a dozen different channels.
The aforementioned Pacific restaurant has a huge menu, with virtually none of it available. 'Toasted bread' or as they say ' a delicious accompaniment to any main meal' is never available so we have paratha with excellent poached eggs, though they are from what I can tell, fried eggs. The staff are really helpful, and we look forward to returning there later in the trip.
We hope we have secured ourselves a cabin on the famous Bangladeshi paddle steamer 'the rocket' - a 27 hour trip south which should afford us some breathtaking river scenery. We haven't coughed up the money yet, but have been assured that if we pay on the 11th December, then we will depart on the 15th....watch this space. In the meantime we have booked ourselves an AC coach to Srimangal for a few days amongst the tea plantations.
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