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.
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