Country Archives: Bangladesh

This is the end of the trip to Bangladesh. I’ll fly out tomorrow.

I didn’t get as far up the Brahmaputra as I’d have wished, but that is not entirely surprising, given the limited time and the vast area that Bangladesh and Northeastern India cover.

It was an intense time here. People are incredibly friendly and, even more so, incredibly curious. This makes travelling difficult at times. I would have liked to spend some more time with individuals, accept more invitations, get to know the culture a bit better, maybe learn some more Bengali, etc. But the short encounters with so many people during the day – where I was stopped and just asked for my name, or my country, or where people just wanted to snap a photo of me – eventually exhausted me enough to only want my peace and quiet at the end of the day. I was happy to lock the door behind me in a hotel and switch on the TV.
If I ever come back to Bangladesh (right now I’d say I’m definitely not in a hurry, to say it politely…) my patience with the amount of people is something I have to work on.

Over all, however, the trip was amazing.

And on top of it all, cycling and walking on the left side of the road has become natural to me. When I think of having to ride on the right side again soon – that’s what feels wrong. ;)

I cycled ~2400 kilometers in total. The map below shows most of the route I’ve cycled. It does not at all include buses, trains, boats, etc.

Today was the last day on the bike. Gazipur, a city of 1.2 million people, is located just 30km north of Dhaka. I avoided the main highway and cycled on a quiet back road parallel to the railway line connecting Gazipur with Dhaka.

At Tongi, a wee bit north of Dhaka’s airport, I had to join the highway, and cycling in the traffic chaos that is Dhaka was again a lot of fun.

I’m staying in a posh place in the Gulshan area, a bit south of the airport.

Cycled: 30km

The trip is slowly coming to an end. Starting today, I am returning to Dhaka.

I managed to find an almost south-west bearing rout through the town of Pakundia and past Kapasia on pleasant roads. From the latter it was an interesting ride through a streched-out village-like area covered entirely with trees, between which people had built their houses. I followed foot paths at first, which then turned into a narrow asphalted road which eventually brought me to Gazipur.

Here it was, again, difficult to make myself understood. My asking for a hotel made people direct me to a restaurant. When I found a hotel of some sort, the clerk refused to let me sleep there. I think he was concerned it was not suitable for me. All my assurances that I didn’t care about the place’s comfort didn’t help. Finally I was directed to a place that, once more, was quite expensive, but did offer some ‘modern’ comfort.

Cycled: 81km

Unexpected sight

Bloody speed bumps!

A quick ride in north-westish direction, to the town of Kishoreganj, somewhat northish of Dhaka. I have a couple of days before my flight home and I don’t want to spend all of them in Dhaka. So I’m slowly homing in on the capital.

It is now considerably warmer than when I first arrived in Bangladesh. It feels like the actual cycling is a bit of a chore, even though the country continues to be flat as flat can be. Maybe I’m getting old? Well, I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the cycling, not at all.

And as for the town of Kishoreganj – hm, I didn’t see much of it. I arrived late, had dinner, and fell into bed, basically.

Cycled: 78km

It was pouring this morning and I quickly decided to take the mail train up to Rangpur.

I ended up in the back of a cargo coach with my bike, with a bunch of Bangladeshis and their belongings: bags of vegetables, furniture, bicycles, big pots full with little fish. Each two bowls had one man or boy sitting in front of them, constantly patting the surface in order to add oxygen to the water.

The train ride was long, but a very ‘native’ way of travelling, plus I was given snacks and fruit by my fellow travellers. And it was a good alternative to riding my bike in the rain. Unfortunately, it meant that I was taken way north of an unvisited degree confluence in the area, which had been on my to-do list for today.

I’m staying at the Rangpur guesthouse of the RDRS, a Bangladeshi NGO that helps with sustainable development in the rural areas in the north and east of the country.

After breakfast I went looking for the local rajbaris. There are two, one commonly known as Natore Rajbari, and a second, known as Uttara Gono Bhaban. The latter is said to be one of the official residences of the president of Bangladesh, and not open to the public. While seeking the former I ended up at the latter and discovered that it can now be visited. It would open at 10am (it was 9.30 when I arrived) and the entrance fee was 10 Taka – for Bangladeshis. For foreigners it was 500 Taka, 50 times as much. While that is still not extremely much (though I don’t know what exactly there is to see at that rajbari) I don’t think my income is 50 times that of a middle-class Bangladeshi who can afford coming here for leisure and visit the place. (The 10-fold increase that is customary at other places I find acceptable.) Also, I didn’t feel like idling for half an hour.

Instead I went for the other rajbari, actually 7 big buildings and a number of smaller ones as well as some Hindu temples. The fee there was 5 Taka, even for foreigners. Hm, I found that a bit low. ;)

I was looking at the first temple when I was approached by two groups of kids, boys and girls, respectively. They handed me a flower and everyone shook my hand and shouted “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

It’s Friday, Muslim holiday, and the place was being prepared for some kind of Valentine’s Day celebrations. People were brought in by the bus full. I didn’t have five minutes for myself before I was stopped again and again for a chat or a photo. I looked around for a bit and left. It was charming but a bit too much.

On the direct highway, Bogra is just 75km from Natore, in a northeastish direction. I wanted to avoid that and cycled north, parallel to the railway. Sometimes I took shortcuts through rice fields, and for a while I cycled on the railway dam right next to the rail track on a singe-file path. It was amazing.

Near the town of Naogaon I turned east. It was quite late in the day already, so I hopped on a bus to Bogra that just happened to wait for passengers at the side of the road to cover the last 30 or so kilometers before sunset. I sat on the roof of the bus with my bike.

At dinner, I experienced my first ever earth quake.

Cycled: 84km

Natore – Bogra

I spent some time riding around the city, then set out towards Natore.

On the way I stopped in Puthia, where there are some rajbaris and Hindu temples. Especially the temples are beautiful. They are about 400 years old and intricately decorated with terracotta tiles.
Some of them are still in use by the approx. 30% Hindu population.
A rajbari was the residence of a zamindar, a Hindu landlord used by the British during their rule on the Indian subcontinent to administer taxation and local affairs.
The ones here are not in the best state of repair. One is used by some government land office, so at least that one is looked after. The other buildings don’t even have complete roofs anymore. I was warned of cobras but didn’t find any.

Looking at the ceiling in one of the temples, I dropped and broke my sunglasses. They now look suspiciously like my normal glasses.

Natore is only about 40km from Rajshahi, and I arrived there around 6pm, with last light.

The countryside up here is still flat. No hills, no nothing.

I think Bangladesh’s surface is either one of the following three: settlements (villages, towns, cities); water (ponds, reservoir lakes, rivers); fields.
There is very little forest – there is some, of course, e.g. in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Bangladesh has no stones. Maybe there are some rocks somewhere in the eastern hill ranges. But generally there is only sand and silt from the anual floodings. That explains the high number of brick factories seen everywhere. Often the freshly burnt bricks are then broken up again to use as foundation for e.g. roads.

Cycled: 70km

Rajshahi - Natore

Having my pants fixed

My train was scheduled for 11.20am today.
I managed to cram absolutely all of my luggage into my backpack, so that I could leave the bike in a different coach if need be.

Mr Shiny Shoes cycled to the train station, feeling a little too shiny. I wished Dhaka’s tendency to cover everything with a grey layer of dust would apply to my shoes quicker than usual. But two kilometers of cycling (including getting lost on what is a pretty easy route) is not enough for that.

I paid 110 Taka (approx. 1.20 Euro) for the 8+ hour (again, a bit more than 200km) trip to Rajshahi.

While waiting for the train, I was of course the attraction, mostly for beggars and children. I try not to give money but buy food, if possible. But many times I just refuse to give anything. This is a very difficult topic, and fortunately, outside Dhaka and Chittagonga, begging is quite rare.

I had a crowd of people around me, when all of a sudden a guy, in his mid twenties, stepped forward. He held a speech to everyone around me, in Bengali, in a seemingly friendly tone. Of course, I didn’t understand a word, but it felt like he was speaking in defence of my privacy. The crowd slowly dispersed and he looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and asked what he had said, but he didn’t understand my (English) question.

He stuck around, without asking the usual, and let me know when my train finally arrived. One of the conductors quoted a 500 Taka fee for the bike, but my friend just showed me to the next coach and said “no money”, pointing at the bike. He then stayed around until departure (one hour later than scheduled) and we struck up a bit of a conversation with the help of two other guys who spoke more English.

This time, everyone was on my side, as far as money was concerned, and told me repeatedly not to pay anything to the conductors.

When they finally came to check tickets I politely but firmly refused their requests to pay the bideshi (foreigner) tax – from 500 down to “some money”. They came back and tried again a couple of times, but I just pointed at everyone else’s luggage and explained that there was no difference between those bags and my bike. And since there were no special provisions for bicycles anyway, there was no reason to treat a bike differently, fee-wise. Eventually they gave up and left me alone.

After it was clear that I wouldn’t pay, the conductors even became friendly. After nightfall they warned me to be careful, as fellow travelers might feel inclined to push me off the train to get a hold of my possessions. I found that slightly exaggerated…

Beyond that the trip was long but uneventful. I would recommend traveling by mail train, though, as you meet a whole bunch of different people than in the faster intercity trains. Bring a lot of time.

I arrived in Rajshahi at 11pm, 4 hours late.

This morning I went to the train station to find out how mail train journeys work here.

The plan is to head to Rajshahi tomorrow, which is located approx. 200km (as the crow flies) to the northwest from here.

In the afternoon I spent several hours cycling crazy Dhaka, looking for new shoes. I finally found a pair of running shoes in Gulshan, one of Dhaka’s upmarket quarters. Proper cycling shoes seem impossible to be had, even in Dhaka.

Oh Dhaka, chaos capital! Traffic is enormous, nothing has changed since last time. Riding here induces a constant rush of adrenaline – at least when one is not caught in a traffic jam. The afternoon hours seem especially prone to clogged roads, and it’s not only the main streets that are filled to the brim. Often the small alleys aren’t much better off.

Dhaka at night is another interesting experience. The temperatures are pleasant (For me, anyway. Many locals wear their scarfs wrapped around their head.) and the streets are full with people. There are stalls (or just blankets) along the sidewalk where everything can be bought, from food to batteries, from shoes to vegetables. Some are lit by oil lamps, some by modern energy-saving bulbs illegally connected to the grid, some by battery-powered LED lamps.

For some reason I didn’t take any pictures today…

A bit of a stressful morning it was. I was at the train station around quarter past 6am, the train was scheduled for 6.40am.

I looked for my coach, and the conductor – there is at least one per coach, it seems – was a bit baffled about the bike. A friendly fellow traveller stepped forward and helped by translating that the bike should go to the mosque. The mosque? There is a mosque compartment in one of the coaches – at the other end of the train. We found it, there is a massive generator in that coach as well (probably for the AC coaches?). The bike was not allowed in the mosque, even though someone had his luggage in there, too. Oh well, to make a long story short, a couple of conductors went berzerk over the various places we tried to store the bike in, before it was allowed in the generator room. I had only been on the train for 20 minutes but I was already sweating from moving the bike through the narrow ailes.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, except for the dust and sand that kept coming in throuh the open window. By the time I arrived in Dhaka I was as dusty as if I’d ridden my bike the whole day.

In the afternoon I went to one of the numerous DHL offices in the city and managed to send my souvenirs home without any special export permit.

A mail train

Very early in the morning I went to the train station to find out whether I can take my bike on the intercity train to Dhaka tomorrow. Opinions were mixed, but it seemed like it would work.

I bought a ticket, then I cycled back to last night’s drop-off point looking for my shoe – no luck.

I then spent some time in the city – I found bike shops at one intersection, and shoe stalls at the next, but no cycling shoes in between.