Delhi in 30 hours with 30 AUD

How did I not guess that something's gonna go wrong with one of these third world airlines? I was told at Dhaka Airport that the plane has technical difficulties and there are no spare planes so they'll have to get two other airline to take me separately to Delhi via Kolkata. Otherwise the next direct flight would not be for three days. Great. Something some how slipped again in Kolkata and I never did end up being booked on the second flight when I turned up, thankfully the flight was fairly vacant and I managed to get on it.

I ended up arriving in Delhi way after midnight (Taxi costed 230Rs). Driving through the streets at that time of the day is a weird experience. On the suburban roads where the shops are closed already hundreds of people camp outside on the pavement lighting fires with gasoline cans, some are asleep on the footpath or the refuge islands, next to street dogs or perched up on a piece of bamboo mat on a bench or on their work carts they use during the day, or in their CNGs(auto rickshaws). As the taxi took me closer to Praha Ganj near the main train station, the eateries are alive with mainly men buzzing in and out getting supper. The Hindi presence is unmistakable - the vegetarian restaurants, the pictures and idols of Hindu Gods displayed on vehicles and walls, marigold decorated chains and shrines brightens any street corner.

Despite many still being very poor here, you can immediately tell that it is a lot more scrubbed up and prosperous than Bangladesh by the bigger scale of everything, the neon lights, the amount of English being used and the much better clothes they have. Perhaps more worldly too. The number of tourists around here means that I'm not such a rare occurrence and while I still get the stares they are not as shocked or as blunt as to follow you around as the Bangladeshis.

In the morning, a young man working for the temple comes into the hotel reception to collect their daily contributions in a metal bucket. The hotel manager, who a second ago was putting his best foot in trying to sign me up to some dodgy tour suddenly wipes all aggression off his face and turns into an obedient little cat as he handed over coins for the messenger. The young man was dressed in all grey traditional attire with a peach pink scarf, his peaceful "I'm in Nirvana" face dusted with powder, simply nodded in acknowledgement and disappeared as gently as he had arrived.

The Red Fort

I spent the morning at the Red Fort, Lal Qila (100Rs), which is the huge 500 year old palace and fort of the Mughal Empire (the Peacock Throne still sits there) which was the last great power on the subcontinent before the Brits took over in the 19th century. Its an amazing few acres of gardens and palaces and a few really fascinating museums on ancient and recent Indian political history including a lot of stuff on their fine tradition of peaceful resistance both pre and post Gandhi.

For the first time for a long time, when I saw the splendid white marble palaces in the main garden, I had a faint sense of dejavu. This is what my dream of India would be like if I ever had a dream of India. White stretching terraces, delicate domed roofs, neatly planted flowers perched in a warm breeze and a white cloudy haze. Women in saris floating across the pearl like floors in twos and threes, so light as if they are just part of the flora and not really part of this world. Birds migrating from one roof to another darting like fireworks in the sky, smell of rain in the big open sky. I felt as if I've walked into a space at the back of my mind.

State of the Art Delhi Metro

After a lunch of throat-slashing samosas (24 Rs) I launched myself back into the real Delhi. If I hadn't had a good practice in Bangladesh with the rickshaws I would otherwise be really scared to take one here by myself but I know these guys are pretty harmless if you are forward with them. And If I hadn't got a rickshaw(20Rs) I wouldn't be able to find the metro stop as its shown on the map - it never mentioned how its actually a small door in a park tucked behind the Police Station which you can easily mistake as a filthy public toilet. But as soon as you walk down the staircase into the station its a different story. You could be anywhere in a high-tech city in Europe or East Asia. Its bright, clean, air conditioned and the info was clear, concise and easy to find. The metro was so extremely cheap (8Rs), about 25 Australian Cents within the central zone can get you around five or six stations about 7 or 8 kms away which otherwise would cost ten times more on a CNG and ten times more time due to the congestion. Security check is strict so I can only take photos of people's feet... Inside the carriages it was packed, not just the middle classed people but some poorer people too. The passengers were quiet and observant like in a lift, something I've never seen around this part of the world before.

I have a feeling that the much better organised traffic outside is much due to this new system, and while its a good thing for a lot of people its probably put a lot of taxi and rickshaw guys out of work as well. Just like TV and mobile phones, this technology is changing culture, lifestyle and economy like never before.

Tiring Stuff

Shopping in Connaught Place is a very tiring business, because its a huge roundabout with large sections divided by big boulevards. Not only is it hard to navigate but you'd risk your life crossing the road as well. I tried crossing the road by going down the underground passage ways except there's a guy standing at the top of the staircase pleading to me very emotionally not to go down there. "Its bad, its dangerous, they'll put shit on your shoes." (Which I've been warned already), he even put his arms across the entrance to block me from going in. OK, what-ever, and it did stink like rotting beetle nut spit and a urinal so I just crossed the road instead. Geeziz.

Prices are a lot higher here than in Bangladesh and the touts are a lot more tourist savvy, but the variety of the shopping was much more interesting and still affordable at the end of the day (300Rs for an embroidered bag, 2 nose studs and two scarves combined). I still had to fight off three separate young men trying to accost me. I've forgotten how annoying it is to travel as a single female completely open to harassment. They've all got the same lines too, like straight after the "practice English" line they ask me why I'm "angry" when I just ignore them. Jerks.

HelloGoodbye

I ended the day with a good old chicken masala with my last bit of cash (90Rs), and drifted off to sleep till I was plucked up again at 3am. The taxi (400 Rs) took me back to the airport past India Gate, commemorating Indian soldiers who died on foreign soils for foreign powers. The sleeping people I saw last night look as if they hadn't moved despite the noise, the fumes, the heat. But they have. They've probably worked the entire 30 hours that I was here and made less than a tenth of what I spent. I hope they wake up to an India that treats them just a little better, just like its been improving bit by bit all this time through all these years.

Challenge No.6: Confronting Acid Violence

While I could make a light hearted approach to this diplomat wives hobby event which makes ex-pats feel better about spending money on a night out amidst the surrounding festering poverty just 30 meters away on the otherside of the barb wire, I think I should also point every one to some important websites/research helping women in this region of the world that has survived acid attacks and other gender based violence - ie. violence committed upon people specifically as a result of them being women.

Some things to ponder:

• Acid violence is prevalent in the Indian subcontinent (ie. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) as well as parts of South East Asia. It is however more frequently reported in Bangladesh than any other country.
• Physical "beauty" is the main way which women gains status in societies that denies them equal education, employment etc social opportunties or recognitions, and in Bangladesh for example a women's "beauty" can mean she marries into a better family. Being defaced by acid destroys a women's ability to advance in soceity in this manner, and contains cultural concepts of shame - permanent scarring/ "marking" you (and your family) forever. AV is a gender based violence like rape and genital mutilation, it is a means of controlling women's sexuality and subordinent position via physical harm - eg. punishment for extramarital sex (infidelity), not marrying whom their family directs them to etc. The constant threat of acid violence against women is a method of reinforcing male dominance/the patriarchal power structure - so it is just as important to address as equal access to education, health, economic equality.
• AV is a burden to health expenditures for families and communities. Physical health risks associated with acid attacks eg. further skin diseases and blindness; mental health affects of attacks leading to cases of depression and suicide, plus the combined of the above on women's economic ability to support herself and her family and children

Links:
www.acidsurvivors.org/ (Bangladesh org)
http://cambodianacidsurvivorscharity.org/ (Cambodia org)
http://www.womenatrisk.org.uk/vw1.html (UK based org)

Elora Halim Chowdhury on feminist perspectives on AV in Bangladesh & world
Amartya Sen's chapter on "Missing Women" in Development as Freedom

Pleasure No.5: Going to the Ball

Ops... passed out in my new sari and self embroided blouse ;-*

On my last night in Bangladesh T&I went to the Acid Survivors Foundation annual fundraising ball. I didn't know that Bangladeshis 'cut shapes' too, but man, they are pretty on to it!!

Challenge No.5: Nightly Blackouts

Its just like one of my little empires from SimCity2000. The Mayor has gone to make herself a cup of tea so the lack of funds, modern technology, and commitment to invest in clean and renewable energy sources leads to shortage of power supply and eventually boots her out of politics. Dammit.

The small fraction of the households in Bangladesh that could actually afford housing with electricity will suffer from regular powercuts - it happens during the day too, but its the evenings that you notice it - especially if you've taken it for granted all your life. In Templeton's apartment black it happens about twice a night usually for around about 30 minutes to an hour. The convenient stores around the middleclass dwellings has a huge stack of candles behind the counter just to cater for this nightly ritual - Templeton's colleague's wife Lopa coins "The Bangla Tradition". No wonder the birthrate in Bangladesh remains so high...

Smile Sylhet!

We finally made it to Sylhet, Templeton's base for his sojourn in Bangladesh. Its the capital of the nothern province, which is famous for the tea gardens and tea production. With a population of 6 million, it is still considered one of the smaller towns in the country. Being a "regional town", the lack of other foreigners make me just stick out a little bit more and people seem to gather around us whenever we are out.

Its very cosy inside T's apartment - as in, it feels like home and its, well, hot. Its on the fourth floor of a block of around about 12(?) units (two per floor). Its probably a bit big for just one person, and it looks a little empty because he doesn't really want to furnish it. But as soon as I arrived it turned into a mess... The front door is secured by a padlock, and so is the gate to the complex. Padlocks are probably what the No.8 wire is to New Zealanders to the Bangladeshis. T's neighbours are quite nosey but quite friendly too, so I don't feel particularly threatened but we sort of try and keep a low profile. Its in a quietish and leafy neighbourhood even though its only 5 minutes rickshaw ride from the main drag. Its a typical mid-range middle-class Bangla brick apartment block that is kind of non-descript in my architectural vocabulary - maybe like, if you take rows of mint lollies and pile them together in a neat stash, then take some away as if you are playing Jinga with it. There is an awfully ostentatious building at the top of the road, kinda like a banana republic style embassy in Thorndon Wellington or one of those Chinese built mansions in Howick with those ghastly poles guarding the front door, added with chunks of blue perspex jabbed around the edges just to give it a 21st century feel. Apparently, during the wet season when his street was flooded there is fish swimming in the street. A little dusty white and brown pussy cat hangs around the area, catching a grasshopper or two sometimes and I like to say hi to him but he runs away. I'm thinking by now you should have worked out that I am an incurable cat-person. That's another thing that the locals are amused about - the fact that I say Hi to cats.

I went and visited T's work on the second day after an invariably long sleep in and met some of his colleagues and had lunch at his office. For 30 takas (about 60 australian cents) you get a 1-meat, 1-vege and rice dish for lunch. I was lucky to turn up on a day where the office ran a course on HIV prevention & education for a group of sex workers, but while I really tried hard to convince the officer in charge to let me sit in, they didn't feel comfortable having me there, which is completely understandable.

I am getting some shopping done for a ball I am going to at the end of the week in Dhaka, and we spend the day running around visiting different shops for things like sari, a blouse that goes inside the sari, bangles, shoes, bindis, makeup, and fake eyelashes. The way they organise shops here in Bangladesh is quite interesting - all the shops for a particular item, like saris, would all be in one area in one shopping complex, pretty much selling the same thing at the same price, one after another. You then have to go across town to get makeup and accessories - and again with each shop, all the same size, lined one after another, selling pretty much exactly the same products. I just can't see how they actually compete and make money with so much similarity with each other. It certainly is hard for me as a consumer to choose with no variation in choice, if you know what I mean. Another insteresting observation though, is that even though all the stuff I've been buying is all "girly stuff", the shop keepers are all men. They are still extremely clued up on how I should wear make up and even demonstrate how to put a sari on for me.

The town is getting ready for the Shab-e-barat festival, which takes place a month before Ramadan. Its basically a big feed along with a whole evening of praying, because they believe that it is through out this very evening that Ala decides the fate of all people for the coming year. The streets certainly has a festive feel to it as people seem to be really busy with shopping and getting home. Even the cap sellers come out to exploit the time of the year where every man and boy absolutely must go to the mosque. The butcheries are at their busiest, with cows and goats tied at the front of each shop. The poor skinny things looked bored, and while I would imagine that they'd sense that their lives are about to end quite soon by crying and wailing, its not the case. Maybe because the actual slaughtering happens at the back of the shop. Again each butchery looks the same. The bench tops at the shop front is lined with big portions of meat, with large chunks of legs hung on hooks above the benches. The heads are left unskinned and lined up at the edge of the floor of the bench unless there is room on the bench, while the sheets of skin are piled at the back of the shop.

We were invited to T's mate Surma's place for some snacks first, and then to Shahidul and Lopa's for a full on dinner. The stuff Lopa makes is absolutely amazing, apart from the staple chicken curry there was a fish dish (fresh water I assume) made very similar to the Chinese fresh steam style, a vege curry out of a plant that is melon like but also reminded me of ocras, a great dahl and egg soup dish that you eat with lemons, and a potato dish. It was made a lot more atmospheric too with the blackout as we had to eat in candlelight - can you imagine how hard it was too eating with your hands and not really seeing what you're trying to pick up?

Week 1 in Bangladesh

Hi all

Just a quick note to let you know that I am very safe and having a blast in Bangladesh - and did manage to not fall in the gap. As we left Dhaka just in time we haven't been affected by the riots apart from a few bus cancellations and cell phone connections being disconnected during the worst days.

We are back at Templeton's place in Sylhet now so I should have time to update the blog in the next few days.

Have fun
FB

Gong Fishing

Chitty Chitty Gong Gong (sorry, can't help myself)

Chittagong is a frantic place just a little busier and more frantic than Dhaka, and as the economic centre for Bangladesh, it does come across a lot more upmarket and cleaner than Dhaka. The range of street food, market food and clothes for example, is a lot bigger than everywhere else I've been so far. Chittagong's most famous son is also Dr Muhammad Yunus, the man who pioneered the Grameen Bank - the micro credit loan systems that lend money particularly to women for small businesses.

The port is the largest one in the country where all its exports and imports come in and out. It also famously has one of the world's largest (but most exploitative and polluting) ship breaking industries - a lot of Bangladesh's metal supplies actually comes from the scrap from these yards. Driving through the city you can see the ship breaking related yards whether it be warehouses, chemicals, tools or transportation lining the main road.

T's mate's mates happened to be chartering a boat out in the harbour so we took a ride out with them. It was a bit grey but we still made it to the end of the harbour, an area before the Bay of Bangal began, before this huge storm took hold of the city. Two types of vessels are present in the harbour – gigantic shipping liners coming in and out of the harbour, some towards the end of its life and about to be sent to the wrecking yards soon, and others coming in and out with large containers like lego bricks. In contrast a handful of tiny 2-4 meter traditional wooden fishing boats brave the oncoming storm trying to get a catch before the weather gets too bad. The men are still working away with their oars, some pulling in the lines. They bop up and down in the giant grey waves and floating dead leaves looking like they'd topple over any time, the sky toppling bells of the shipping liners hanging over them. The scene in front of me is probably the most apt metaphor for Bangladesh's place in the world right now - struggling to stay afloat in a storm: sink or swim - is there even a choice?

Old Town & Hindu Enclave

The next day we took a walk to the old town next to the fishing port. Just like other old towns the narrow lanes wind in every direction. Chickens and goats pluck along the road and a white rubbery like substance, probably fish guts or fish skin are lined out to dry on fence wires. The wet weather finally began to settle down a little but it rained so much overnight that puddles and flooded drains are all over the place.

We find the fishing port at the end of the old town. It was such a circus at the small port – hundreds of wooden boats line the front and men doing all kinds of work swarm the place – fixing nets, fixing boats, transporting fish, packing, or just ordering others around. Fish is packed on ice like spikes on a hedgehog on wagons pulled by bikes. The men pulling the bike were using up all their might because the ground is full of stubborn thick mud, clamping on the thin wheels of the wagon.

A lovely middle aged Hindu man started chatting us up, and took us to the Hindu enclave in the village. They certainly seem to live quite harmoniously with the Muslims here, having their own shrines and schools. The shrine was really basic and almost makeshift looking, and when we arrived there were little boys having a bit of a splash party. Its basically a small store room at the end of the lane way, with a small flooded entrance and a raised bamboo level for the idols which, while coarsely made, had beautiful gold adornments and clothes. The whole place did looked like it was going to fall over any time, but he was just so very proud of it. He showed us the local school where kids are chanting out some reading – its no bigger than 3 meters square, next to the brick lane way where men and women are carrying on their business.

He even took us inside his house – a small dark shack sheltered between two thin brick walls with the front and top covered with flax/straw mats. Its probably correct if I assume there’s no electricity or running water here - everything was dark inside and there are several buckets of water being used for different purposes. His old mother, an incredibly skinny old lady with grey hair and a worn out white sari, was crowching down low making the fire and his wife slipped to the back of the house when we arrived. As soon as we sat down on a couple of drums he provided us the entire neighbourhood was here to check us out, he seemed to be extremely proud to pick us up on the street and just laughed and smiled the entire time. This was one of the neatest and warmest experiences I've had here.

Pleasure No.3: Hell-raising Bus Rides

A Day in a Jade Pagoda
We've had the luxury of taking air-conditioned buses (think 5 hours in the 38c humidity...) while travelling long distances in Bangladesh so far, while costing next to nothing compared to the buses or trains in Europe, it is about three times the cost of locally operated passenger buses. These are considered the middleclass choices here and many of them come with a built in massager (usally broken anyway), free bottled water and crackers, and non-stop Bollywood entertainment on TV (though those 20 year old Mr Bean movies seem to be quite popular as well...). They even come and take a video of the passengers before take off because these buses are often hijacked in the middle of no where by some deperados.

Bye Bye Aircon, hello Raging Mad Totoro-cat-bus-esque Bus Ride
Due to the riots in Dhaka, security for the 'rich man' air-con buses become a huge issue. We basically had to stay in Cox's Bazaar for an extra day because we can't get a bus out, but by day two they still don't look like they are reinstalling the shuttles. The only ones returning to service are the cheaper local buses, so we decided to take the plunge and rough it to get to Chittagong on time.


It turned out to be a surprisingly fun and exhilirating ride, because we are so exposed to the going-ons on the road without the shelding of the big heavy frames of those high security buses. The bus driver was exceedingly high on beetlenuts, going through all those sticks pretty much the entire time he was driving. He was pretty fearless, and bob sleighed us through the country side, tooting the entire way at rickshaws, motorcyclists and the occasional lost cow, narrowly avoiding each by swinging the vehicle from one side of the road to the other and only driving to the left side when the oncoming traffic get to about five meters towards us. We were sitting at the very front seat so it wasn't five hours you could exactly sleep through. During the ride a raffle amongst the passengers were drawn. Its part of an incentive to encourage people to take their company's bus in a horrendously competitive privatised market. This is the lovely lady that won the umbrella (in perfectly apt racing colours) who graciously posed for the photo for me with her winning ticket. How sweet.

Clam in the Sand

Watch our little friend digging itself home at the beach in Bangladesh (Cox's Bazaar, near the Myanmar boarder).

Pleasure No.2: Beach Holiday Adventure

Who you are is who you know. T knows L who is another Australian living in Cox’s Bazaar who knows a local M who knows a hotel owner’s son, so we get to crash at this hotel for free for a few days. Bonus.

Out and about
M is a Mecca born Bangladeshi, and a very talkative English teacher at a local high school – I think he’s got the hots for L. He took us for a bit of a trip around town on the first day. Cox’s Bazzar is on the Burmese boarder, in fact, quite a few UN agencies here look after the stateless Rohingya refugee camps not far from here. There is a huge Burmese community here with their own temple and stupas, and a “Burmese Market”, which we went and checked out. The Burmese women wear crazy white powder on their faces and are quite plump compared to the Bangladeshi girls.

M took us to the local Bangladeshi markets to check out some local produce. Dried fish seems to be a staple here. Then there’s a huge strip of houses completely free of furniture and interior deco – each of the entire house is hung with giant pearls of bananas at different extents of ripeness, basically when they are ready they get taken away to the markets. Next to the “Banana Street” there was a fairly large rubbish dump in front of a small stretch of land you need to walk in order to get to a line of boats – we got cornered by a number of children diving for mud fish in a square waterhole. We then took a big CNG ride around the quiet beaches and climbed up a hill top with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean. It is actually quite amazing to see open space in Bangladesh for the first time without cluttered houses and crowds of people. The scene reminded me so much of the tramp up Mt Pauanui when I was young.

We took a walk down the beach - I didn't think that the Bangladeshis would like the beach given how they don't show much flesh, but I was totally wrong. Particularly young people like to walk around, children swim and most others get up to their knees. And just like beaches in Europe they hire out little benches you can lounge around in, so we got one and spent an afternoon watching the world go by there drinking coconut juice. Oh man, life!!
Night out at Mermaids
Mermaids is a strippers bar in Wellington, so when I hear of the name Mermaids I always think “dodgy!!”. But Mermaids in Cox’s is quite a different establishment. Its an ex-pats oriented beach front cafe run by a German-Bangladeshi guy, its probably the most worldly and internationally looking establishment I've come across in Bangladesh. Its a classy and lovely little hide out with relaxed deco, a beautiful sand garden and fantastic indy music - and a sit-down toilet, would you believe! We met L there for dinner (it was average, I must say) and some strawberry shisha.

We were meant to leave before midnight but it started to rain pretty heavily, so we shared the rest of the smuggled in beverages with the staff, who were fantastic party animals and didn't treat us like foreigners. As they don't get alcohol very easily here the boys really did appreciate it and were totally in the mood to go hard. I think we almost broke the wooden floor... At one stage the cafe dogs (aptly named Shakira, Yellow, and Brown) came up and danced with us for a wee while before heading back into the garden to guard the place. We raid the kitchen for some light midnight snack. Its pouring down like mad, and the pitch black sky beyond the beach is hollow like the desert ... must be time for midnight swim. I haven't been in such a good mood for ages. The dogs are calling out to me from the beach... aroooh, aroooh, don't go too far so we don't have to come get youuuuh~~

............

I woke up at 6am in a completely foreign hotel room at a different end of town, and there's a fucking cockroach crawling across my chest. My wet clothes in a soggy pile on the floor. Hmm. The entire room smells like five month old jungle socks and there's broken glass and rusty steel frames lying around in the hall. Well, at least its T who's asleep in the same room and not the guy that likes "Malaysian girls". T&I settled the bill downstairs and hop onto a rickshaw and headed back to our original hotel.

Its not a holiday untill you've had a fight with locals

The rickshaw lad refused to take our money even after we insisted three or four times, and just rode off. It was quite a weird situation, but we were too tired and hung over to chase after him so went back to our room to catch up on sleep. We re-emerged outside at 12pm quite shocked to find the young bloke waiting for us in the dead midday heat. He demanded something along the lines of 5 hours of pay - - - we of course didn't think it was particularly fair, and this kerfuffle of the three of us "negotiating" drew a huge crowd of other rickshaw drivers to his aid. I felt like a pompy Hollywood actress trying to fight off the paparazzi - I should just really learn to accept this sort of occurrence given the situation.... we finally sorted it out with the hotel staff - the guy thought it might be a good way to earn dosh by waiting for us at the place he dropped us off so he could take us to the next spot, and charge us for the waiting time as well, not knowing that we'd be gone for half the day. While I really did feel sorry that he'd missed out on half a day's work, its kinda quite stupid that he'd think we'd fall for his little plan. We agreed to give him money for the ride plus an extra bit just to cover for his "losses" and he left with a bit of a sigh.

above: naughtiest kids I've met so far are from Cox's Bazare

Waiting out the Riot

It turns out that we aren’t able to get a bus out of Cox’s Bazare the day after tomorrow. We kinda expected things to get a bit complicated upon leaving Dhaka the day before, as there were large police presence all over the streets. There’s a huge riot going on in Dhaka, and its feared that it might spread to other parts of the country. Therefore there is a huge nationwide curfew for big cities including our destination, Chittagong. Basically it means you get shot by the military if you are found on the street within curfew times. So our bus companies are cancelling their runs as well just not to make it difficult for themselves.

One of the burnt out buses in Dhaka -

took this picture after we travelled back through to pick up my passport

I am not completely sure on how the riot came about either. From what I can gather, police had beaten up a few Dhaka University students at a soccer match recently, and they had refused to apologise for their brutal acts, and its caused the students to fight back. But it is more of an overall dissatisfaction at the rule of the interim government after a vote of no confidence brought down the government, and they have been fairly incompetent with their rule. Apparently they have been arresting students and professors who were accused of instigating the violence – I think any country that arrests academics on mass needs to be questioned. The worse off are definitely the migrant workers and homeless people, as many of them do shift work over night/live on the streets. Now that they won’t have an income or places to be safe, a lot of them are forced to go back to their villages.

I started befriending a young boy no more than 4 or 5, who looked like he was orphaned. He hung out outside the inn we were staying at and I give him a biscuit or dahl ball or two when ever I had any with me. I made the mistake this morning of playing with him by simply just clapping hands with him. When it was time to leave on a rickshaw he wanted to come with us, but obviously we couldn't take him. It was a bit awful because he started running after us behind the rickshaw holding his arms out wanting me to take him with me, and almost hurting himself in the meantime. He was so little, and the wheels of the rickshaw were so big and travelling so fast... I tried to tell him to let go, kept saying "bye bye", he started crying because we weren't stopping and he couldn't catch up. The rickshaw sped up and he was left behind crying on the street full of people that just went about their business and no one bothered to ask him if he was alright... He's probably never had any one expressing any interest or care towards him, and to have someone who does then suddenly leave is just something really heartbreaking that I am not quite sure if I am able to live with. It left a depressing and powerless feeling in my chest. I felt so upset.

Challenge No.4: Traffic

Traffic in any Bangladeshi city is a complete chaos. There are no road rules, not even the keep left thing; it comes down to who is more brutal than the rest, and who can sound more horns per minute than the rest. Thousands of rickshaws, CNGs (autorickshaws, ie. a semi motor bike with a cage built around it), delivery wagons, motorbikes, small cars, giant fourwheel drives (90% of the time belonging to the mighty UN), rusty buses, and the occasional animal all share the road - the main boulivards are actually very wide, but when they are all here scrambling to get through from A to B, it is impossible to see where you are going. All this aculmunates to dusty and fume filled air and an earful of screaching beeping, swearing, screaming and the odd crash here and there.

Old beaten buses, mainly imported from other countries after their use-by-date has been long gone hoon the streets, with their paint scratched from hundreds of near accidents and their metal frames rusting away into a dark orange. Passengers young and old are packed inside like chickens in a cage and spilling out the side windows and side doors with a few hangers on at the back or half way up the roof resembling a circus human pyramid stunt. Imagine my self-consciouness when a bus and a half load of people like this all starring at you with their wide open eyes the deep black against the pale white bewildered and possibly petrified.

The personality of your rickshaw or CNG (autorickshaw) driver really shows when you put your life in their hands. There's the timid young guys who always get bullied into giving way to others whenever they push in and never argue with you about the price at the end of the ride, and then there's the (I'm sure he was) retired fighter pilot types who looks pretty harmless on the outside but will shoot through any traffic jam in record speed just so that he doesn't have to put up with the touts hassling us trying to sell anything from popcorn to colouring-in books to the latest pirated Harry Potter book (not that JK Rowling needs more money anyway). Who needs Disneyland when you can take a ride in Dhaka?

Challenge No.3: Two Worlds in One

I sit on the rocking rickshaw looking across the busy smoky crowd. The skinny man in front of me paddling the rusty chains of the wheel, sweat soaking through his thin shirt, already tattering at the edges and moldy spots line a triangular shape over his back, only looking behind to check for traffic. His lungi is perched up a, two thin legs working away, stick like insect pushing against gravity, no shoes, just a big scar at the back of his right leg changing shapes as the flesh push forwards and backwards. When we pull over in front of a bookshop I search my purse for a twenty takkas (40 Australian cents) note. His eyes peered at the ground as he waited for me, only looking up at me for a brief moment to receive the money, nods, and rides away into the waves of traffic. He didn't think he was worthy to look me in the eye. He didn't think he was worthy to ask for another five takkas, he didn't think he was worthy to be seen at the forecourt of a middleclassed shopping strip. He's just a rickshaw wallah, nothing’s going to change that.


Without going into a middleclassed shopping district you can still spot a middleclassed person from a mile away. They are the impeccably dressed people that never look at the ground, and stroll leisurely through an air conditioned shopping mall and ride up and down the escalator. The men will never be seen in a lungi outside of the house, have beautiful shiny shoes, and will always take a rickshaw. Their wives will have beautiful gold high heeled sandals, and they will hide behind a scarf around their head. The women would never speak to strangers, but will look at another woman from an angle. The men would talk to me politely in English and talk about a relative who lives in the UK. They are the ones coming in and out of shop fronts with a big sign that says "Immigrate or Study in Australia". At the end of the day, nothing is going to change the fact that he is from one of the poorest countries in the world.

Challenge No.1: Being a B Grade Celebrity

My first and by far the biggest challenge is to get comfortable about being uncomfortable. Its true - I am the biggest weirdo to walk this planet, and the Bangladeshis have the biggest apetite for walking freakshows I've come across on my journeys so far. There's absolutely nothing I can do about the way I look, and no matter how much I modify my dress, body language, or the way I talk, I am just bloody different here. Not that its a huge change to my status in life, I've spent my life being out of place, and I am really quite used to being the odd one out.

In Bangladesh its another story though. There is no tourism industry here, and of the few foreign aid workers here, not that many roam the streets all day. Culturally it is also not unacceptable for them to do the following: stop and stare, point at, talk about, and follow someone who is not your average Bagladesh Jane. Templeton being the very brightly sparkly caucasion boy that he is and me with my 'almond eyes' and pink dread walking down a busy market is a bit of a travelling circuit all on its own.

Other than sheer curiocity, there is probably an element of accepted nosiness as well, because the perception of personal space and what is actually considered personal is completely different here. Your business is everyone else's business, and you are hiding something if you don't want other people to see it. Which is a completely different concept to what we value as basic space and privacy. And by far, this is probably the biggest culture shock element I've experienced in my life, basically because a) No Bangladeshis so far is able to explain to me why they do this and b) Being Taiwanese where ppl gossip but don't get involved and Kiwi where personal space can be as wide as a ten acre farm, this sort of enchroachment just makes me uncomfortable

Here are some examples of what I feel uncomfortable with

• Asking me how much I earn, or sometimes straight to how much my husband (where ever he is...) earns
• This lady came up to me in the supermarket and literally fingered through my shopping, picking up different products (fine, they're like Aussie food but...) and examining it
• Templeton's young female neighbours greeted us at the front gate of the apartment, sniffled as soon as they saw me, then proceeded to follow us four storeys up to T's apartment door, while offering to shine their mobile phones into the house while we get in the door, then covering their mouths with their ornas while they giggle and peer
• Stopping at a traffic light and everyone crossing or touting pokes their head inside the CNG(auto rickshaw) first to look, then to tout
• A swarm of waiters all just hanging around us in restaurants and laugh when I get a bit clumsy about using my fingers to scoop curry... sniff! ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT I'M DUMB!#$%

Oh well, just gonna have to get used to it huh?

Pleasure No.1: Food & Attire

My pleasureful food journey started in Bangladesh at New Market, a busy shopping strip in Dhaka.

We had this fantastic snack called pushka - a chickpea based thin round case about the size and shape of an egg, filled with dahl and spices and herbs and you lace it with a sweet fruity sauce. The cases are kept inside a large cabinet heated by light bulbs once its cooked to keep it crispy till ready to serve. It certainly is a delicacy and something I've never seen before. Except I ate it too quickly to get you a picture, so hope this drawing does the job.

While everything is quite new to me, it does seem like here are only a few common staples at restaurants, eg. lamb, beef and chicken mild curries and dahl, at most with a bit of ruti (flat bread) on the side. But there's numerous little snacks to entice your apetite such as shish kebabs (given that they are Muslim and have quite a bit of Middle Eastern influences), those evil fry up shops that serve up lots of shingaras (potato and ginger balls in thick pastry), lentil balls, and samosas, and a times-ten-sugar-and cholestrol version of deep fried donuts. By far the most different thing about food is that you eat with you right hand (left hand is banned on the table.) Its quite a messy business, and the curry can get very sloshy to handle, but its actually quite fun!!!

Shopping malls here are not the white shiny sparkly sort of thing we see in the west, but big grey concrete buildings resembling more of a skeleton of the building, often without basic rails or windows refraining people from falling off the side, office desks are sometimes right at the edge of the forth or fifth floor. I'm actually more worried about people falling on me rather than them falling...


New Market has mainly household goods on the first two floors, like clothes and accessories. The top floor is devoted to an array of hand printing fabric workshops, where you can bring your own material to and select your prints and designs from a sample book, and the apprentices will work on it for you. The feature of this is that the printing blocks are all small square blocks no bigger than 5 or 6 cm squared, its a painstaking and crafty job to get the reoccurring patterns exact and matching throughout the fabric to make it perfect, and it almost always is.


In the hall ways amongst the goods the middleclassed women in perfectly groomed and colourful salwar kameezs walk leisurely inside, not a speck of dust on their multi coloured ornas (scarf). The men wear tailored dress pants and shirts and always have shoes. I feel really scruffy compared to these people, and I don't feel particularly comfortable in a two piece western outfit where the pants are tight around my butt. Salwar kameez is also known as a "Three Piece", which is the most common outfits for women in Northern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The top is a long dress which comes down to the thighs usually with a patterned collar. The trousers can be either loose or tight, and goes straight down to the ankle. The orna is warn like a loop around the front as to cover one's breasts from those "wondering gazes". It does amaze me how they ever keep cool when they are asked to cover themselves up like this all the time.


In my search for a kameez, I found a lot of the local designs is a little too ostentatious with just a little too much gold and jewel sewn on, or at the complete other end with crazy psychedelic tie-dyes that I just couldn't possibly bring myself to put on despite it being quite popular with the local girls... I did manage to find a more earthy coloured one (to my surprise cos I thought I was gonna go all out on something like fluoride pink and ocean blue...) oh I feel sooo much better, and surprisingly cooler due to the light fabric.

Here are the two that I brought during my stay here - you may note that I did not wear the original pants with the kameez in either shots as I found them a little clumsy to get around with, so have chosen my own 3/4 pants underneath instead.

Welcome to Bangladesh

I arrived at Dhaka's Zia International Airport at about 6am local time, equivalent to 1am London time on an 8 hour flight. In the air Dhaka looked like thousands of leaves floating on water and the dawn made the bay shine with a tender orange. As the plane closed in on the city I was surprised at how big the buildings looked compared to my preconceptions. I really thought I will be going to a big camp in the mud somewhere, but its a bustling city just like any other.

I had not slept the entire night and in hindsight should really have taken some of that evil motion-sickness tablets and makes me go to sleep like a piglet. But instead I stayed up and forced to watched this Bollywood crap starring that old guy with the grey beard <- which is essentially about a young widow that - dear oh dear - falls in love with some other guy and remarries, but they make the hero out to be the father in law (grey beard) who is oh-so-liberal and defies tradition and allows the happy couple to be together, rather than the young widow who could have been a feisty go getter but instead portrayed as some obedient little doe and doesn't want to leave her family and is afraid to break tradition, blah blah blah. Fucking piece of chauvinist crap. Why don't they just dub some more dance scenes over the crap dialogue and get it over and done with. Bring back Fire. Anyway... so I didn't get much sleep and stuck in a line in immigration because the immigration officer is in fact doing data entry WHILE he processes you at the same time. I realised why it took so long - he didn't actually know where all the keys are and my full name is REALLY WEIRD, so I conducted a typing lesson while I stood over the counter. Done.

Templeton is equally nervous, having to see me wonder from counter to counter behind the glass window. I figured it wasn't a good idea to greet with a hug or kiss in front of a large crowd of on-lookers who by now has followed me outside the terminal and to the taxi rank. The drive in reminded me so much of a similar drive from Hanoi Airport. Along the busy road hundreds of people go about their lives - carts pulled by bike full of various primary stock like hey, fruit & veg, sacks of rice, piles of sand, trucks full of chicken in cages... What is quintessentially Bangladeshi though is the hoards of rickshaws decorated in bright colours and pulled by a man in a lungi (bit like a Samoan lava lava).

Although its early in the morning and technically autum, the sheer heat is cooking me inside out in the taxi. I was feeling a bit wired as I couldn't possibly sleep in the bright day light, so T and I went into town for a snack and wonder around - mainly to look for some local attire for me. My first rickshaw ride was quite exhilarating - being perched up about half a meter higher than usual and just watching this mad world go by is quite overwhelming, and trying not to fall off at the same time.

I'm not surprised that this is the capital city of the most populous country in the world (and also one of the poorest and most corrupt). There are people everywhere you look, and there's always something going on somewhere. Street vendors line the side of the pavement selling stuff like bananas, roasted nuts, cookies and guavas cut into a shape of a flower served on a skewer, stalls pulled by bikes here and there do odd trades like panel beating (great business given how many rickshaws there are) and shoe repairing. The more disturbing is perhaps the children and the elderly in rags crouching in rubbish, some looking for things to eat and some picking out plastic or metal to sell to the recyclers in a rag sack they carry around all day.

As we hopped off the rickshaw and walked into the busy market cafe for a bite to eat, I realised I was in for some rewarding pleasures but perhaps many more hard challenges here in Bangladesh.

Mind The Gap

I thought by this time of my trip I'd be able to sit back and relax for a bit and reflect on the comings and goings in my head for the last four months... ask myself questions and present some viable answers to my tumbling mind.

But I am in London and it doesn't give me a chance to stop. I gasp for breath but I inhale a bit more intrigue. No illuminations in the vast horizon.

Crossing another continent and this time tomorrow I'll be another half way around the world. I'm not thinking about it, I'm just travelling too fast. All I can do is mind the gap.

How-doo-yoou-doo~~ again!

Why One Country Two Systems Don't Work - EVER & ANYWHERE

On the evening of 9th of August I arrived in London with Scottish money and Scottish accent.
The first thing to reject me was the Oyster card machine. Well, p'Ahhhh!

Pit Stop & much hugs

I am back at Wendy and Deno's place in Hackney, on my comfy little fold-out couch with pretty bright linen from IKEA. I could almost feel like Fogg returning to the London Reform Club, back to the beginning at the end of a crazy run and feeling a bit breathless and a bit tired and just want to have a good sleep. Thank goodness that some of the food I left here three months ago is still sitting in the fridge cos that is saving me a bit of dosh (did I hear you say 'oooh gross'?) since I am spending pounds again and doing numerous social engagements with mates I am catching up with, including Jeremy& Anna, Melissa& Ryan (the kiwis I met in Vienna), Debbie, and Wendy's cool workmates.

I caught up on a bit more sight seeing and exploring around the place, including

Markets in Notting Hill; ancient cemeteries in Stoke Newington;

Subway hopping & Paddington with Debbie

And then I was shocked speechless
I will be heading off on Friday to Bangladesh to catch up with Templeton. Apart from the numerous travel admin to sort out on English-speaking soil, I thought I'd also drop into Brick Lane, aka Bangla Town, for a bit of a warm up to the subcontinent. It was all quite cool and interesting and proceeding in theme with the piping hot spice smell steaming out the windows and the Bollywood music ringing the streets, until I witnessed a blatant case of racism not seen thus far in Europe right in front of my eyes, when, in a fastfood joint hoping for a small snack, an ethnic-African couple in line before me was told by the Bangla shopkeeper that "We don't serve Blacks". They were absolutely repulsed and walked out, and I walked out with them so that this horrid man won't have the chance to say what he might say to me when its my turn. I just didn't think that people who have been subjected to racism themselves would have the ignorance to subject it to others, particularly spending so much time in Hackney where every race just gets along side by side, but maybe I'm wrong. There had been really bad ethnic violence in London in the past, but hell, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If its not going to stop somewhere it would never stop. This is a sad day for London.

But Bob Marley@ Buckingham saved the day
On a brighter note and in solidarity with our Caribbean brothers and sisters, I went to a rather amusing Changing of the Guards yesterday at Buckingham Palace. It turned out that the Jamaican Regiment is doing a bit of summer exchange over in the UK, and are taking regular turns guarding the Queen and have their military band play during the ceremony. They looked pretty smart in their military attire which blended in ethnic gear such as head bands and leopard skin (I didn't know that Jamaica had leopards... but maybe just 'not anymore'...) and some had traditional instrument. But this best bit for me was them breaking into reggae to Bob Marley's 'One Love' and the hoards of tourists rocking away forgetting where they were. And I caught one of them scratching his arse with his clarinet. Eat yer heart out Empire!!

Elsewhere in Scotland...

This is a pine martin.