On the flight from Rome to Dhaka, I saw a ‘foreigner’ at check-in.. later, at the boarding gate, there were 5 more of them.. In Dhaka, they were all waiting at the connecting gate to Kathmandu 😉 Airport personnel seeing me walk through the airport asked me ‘Kathmandu?’.
The visa on arrival was easy, down the stairs, on the right is the counter. Just next to it is the bank where you pay the VOA fee of 51 USD. I had my 2-week trip planned out, but they were happy with the booking com printout of the first hotel reservation and the return flight ticket. As I had read before, I was then told not to queue for immigration but to just walk through.. On the way out, you can’t avoid passing by the mobile company stalls and I bought a grameenphone simcard. Their sign displayed large data packets, but the guy was happy enough to look for a smaller one for me and then even put the simcard into my phone before I went to the bank and changed money to pay him afterwards.
Outside the airport, Bangladesh started: it was complete chaos! I just sat next to the airport wall, watching it and waiting for Rossi who was going to pick me up by motorbike 🙂 We then drove towards his home and stopped on the way for tea. We were sitting in the street, drinking our tea, and nobody cared about me, even when he left me alone for a while! A perfect, relaxed first day in the country! Then some guy stopped and started talking to us.. offering us another tea.. and when he learnt my age, he said it’s the same as his mum’s.. so, now I have a son there 😉 At home, I met Rossi’s mum (after he moved out, she moved in with him again,… well…), we first had a snack of Muri, and later my first real Bangladeshi meal!
The next day we spent driving on the motorbike around the city, we visited Geneva camp, found a handicrafts market at university, had Biryani (with hands! yay!) and Borhani, a weird spicy yoghurt drink, at Hanif Biryani.. we visited the Armenian church, and went to Sandarghat to find out departure times of the launch to Barisal: 9pm! Next to it, there are also boats on which you can book a ‘room’ for around 1 EUR/night 😉 There is a ‘bathroom’ and a bucket to fetch water – from the river 😉
We wanted to go to Sonargaon the day after, but his friend told him to come to a church service where she would be singing, and so we went.. The service was Nigerian or so and there were so few people that we actually had to participate.. Eventually we were officially welcomed, told to sit in the front, and fill out a form: among else, it asked what we wanted them to pray for, for us,… and when they could come to visit us at home to talk about their church.. I kind of hope they won’t make it to Madrid,.. And then, the highlight, we got Nigerian food! A really spicy, smokey rice with chicken dish. I guess that made it worth to wait through the service 😉
Then Rossi took his motorbike and Catherine and I took a CNG to meet up with him at *the* tourist souvenir shop of the city.. and it was full of foreigners! some things were cheap.. some things felt quite expensive.. but it was an interesting place with some really nice stuff. We had falooda together, then Catherine left, and we went to the train station to catch the next train and get on the roof 😉 First, we went on the front of the locomotive when they were changing it from the back to the front.. then, inside the train for one station and then finally on top 🙂 It was getting dark by then.. but before we wanted to get down again, someone shone a light up.. and Police/the train personnel told us to come down 😀 They took us into their compartment of the train and we got a lecture on how dangerous it is to be up there.. unfortunately I understood nothing as it was in Bangla 😉 But I had to confirm that, yes, I actually went to Bangladesh ‘just’ because I wanted to do this! In whatever city we ended up in, we had some more tea, saw some government building Rossi had wanted to see.. and got on a random ship to see the river from above. Dinner in a little restaurant back in Dhaka was around 2 EUR for the two of us.
And then, finally, we made that day trip to Sonargaon. Going on the highway I had a lot of time to think about how safe – or not – my funny plastic-bowl helmet might be.. and that I was wearing a longsleeve tshirt and shouldn’t end up sliding over the road.. We had a tea before entering the site, and I got another new instagram friend,… and then took many many selfies inside Panam city. After lunch – fish! – we went to a modern mosque nearby, in an industrial complex, accompanied by their security, and then took more selfies.. the last stop was a little island and we got there by boat,..
Tomorrow, I’ll meet Adnan and we’ll go to his village in Comilla by bus..