Not happy, jan.

Right. It's time for a bit of a rant. I need to write some stuff and get it off my chest.

I am really not happy in Simeulue at the moment. I think I'm still experiencing post-holiday depression! I feel really restless and bored. My housemates are older and not go-do-stuff people, they just hang out in the house or at work all the time.

It's so frustrating that my laptop got stolen because the admin password is IT-known only, so I can't install anything on my computer (ie skype, or music downloading programs), or set up my computer the way I want it. I lost all my downloaded music (which believes me takes a long time!) and only realised this week that I also lost all of my work photos from 2008. Eight months worth. That really got me down. I had lots of good memories and evidence of my work, which is now gone. I thought I'd backed them all up on CD (the rest I've got) but that one in particular didn't work. I thought I'd checked it too.

There is no way we'll finish by the end of the year, when the project is supposed to be completed. Plus confusion with my budget means I might actually go over the allocated amount.

My new boss is hard in there changing all the screwed up procedures that have been wrong for a long time. But it feels like a criticism of my work, and it's hard not to feel defensive. It also makes me feel totally inept at my job, which I think is what's getting me down the most. I feel so inadequate (as I should, not being an engineer), and people keep assuring me that it's because I was put in a situation with no support or development of my skills. But it doesn't stop me from feeling under pressure and totally stupid most of the time. I'm feeling more and more like just quitting now. But I have to keep going! I'd kick myself if I didn't.

My boss wants my staff and I based in the field 100% of the time now, so we're making a transition to that, which involves a new office and more time coming and going by road, which is tiring. Plus we don't have internet access unless we drive up the road 20 mins and 'borrow' the wireless from Japanese RC, which is a bit annoying too. My only female staff member has been away a lot because she suffered a miscarriage on her first pregnancy.

Because it's Ramadhan, there's not even tennis being played to drag me out of work and get some exercise.

But there's always good news. 2 of my field staff's wives just had babies - one had a boy this morning - so that's good news. And I have the Idul Fitri (end of Ramadhan) holiday to look forward to - starting on Saturday. I am going to Medan and then trekking in Gunung Leuser national park. Then my friends Penny and Ian from Canberra are coming to Medan on the weekend of the 3rd, so I'm looking forward to catching up with them.

I booked flights to Europe the other day for my friends' wedding in Scotland on Dec 13. My boss very generously allowed me to have 8 days leave, which gives me 3 weeks in Dec to spend with friends. I looked seriously into coming home as well, but it meant a lot of flying, plus about $1500 extra costs, which was just too much. As long as I'm with friends, I'm happy. Last year it was just my boss and I in Medan, and I didn't really enjoy it. I'll have an Aussie Xmas next year.

So I hope this depression will pass. But at the moment, in February, Australia here I come!

Sorry for my ranting... I'll make sure I'm happy when I write next!

How depressing!

So I got back to work yesterday morning. Boo! Holidays are over!

First up, I get the pagi-pagi (VERY early morning) flight from Medan at 6:20am, which involves waking up at 5. Blah. And when I rock up to work, our premises manager very calmly tells me that a couple of days ago, someone broke into my office and stole my laptop. Great!

So I’ve lost all my recent photos, all my (very-slooooowly-downloaded) music, and some important work files (yes, IT heads, I did back-up my files about a week prior, but I ran out of time to back up the most important items I was working on right up to the night before I left…). Let’s just say I was much more distressed at the loss of personal files than work ones.

Then the fun begins. I’d forgotten how much I love Simeulue. Power going off all the time. Internet really slow and/or not working. I had to set up everything on my replacement laptop again – including my email. So what does Outlook do? It proceeds to download EVERY SINGLE EMAIL I’ve received to this account. All 2700 of them. Since August 2007. From oldest to newest. At an excruciatingly slow pace.

By lunchtime, I’d downloaded about 250 of them. Not bad, around 10 percent. And then, it started downloading duplicate copies of them. So I still haven’t caught up on what the hell’s been happening for the last month.

And the final blow is, that, for the last month, NOTHING has been happening. All the things that I organised to be progressed and/or completed basically didn’t happen. Everything is STILL on hold. The material order I checked and cross-checked and finalised in the weeks before I left was never actually done because my boss decided the numbers had to be EXACTLY right before placing them, and Logistics didn’t know what some of the items or their specs were – and didn’t work with WatSan to get this sorted. So, my boss also asked my team to count, dunny by dunny (rather than village by village as I’d done), the exact numbers of items required.

He’s totally paranoid about people taking us for a ride, again. Fair enough. But time is marching on, seemingly at an increasing pace, and we just needed to get SOMETHING ordered so my team can actually continue building. So what if it was out by a little bit. We can add that to the next big order. I know it’s not the best way to do things – it’s always good to get numbers sorted – but my team have been waiting for materials to be ordered for over 3 months. Now we’ve lost another month.

And I still can’t find a copy of the calculations I used to make the material order, the most important document I need to avoid reinventing the wheel. That got lost with my laptop, and all the people I gave a copy to don’t have one any more, for some reason. Fuckers.

I really felt like crying yesterday. And punching my boss. And logistics.

Oh yeah, and it’s Ramadhan. So everyone’s fasting, no-one’s working (and thus my project is going even more slowly), and the call to prayer goes on loudly all through the day and into the night, every night. It's like the mosques are competing with each other. People play soccer and set off firecrackers at random times of the early morning. I am definitely using my ear plugs!

At least I had a great dinner last night with the Simeulue crew – freshly caught fish and wine and G&Ts. And we set off a BIG firecracker of our own in retaliation, and almost blew up the house. Gold! It actually created quite a stir in our neighbourhood, my neighbours weren't very happy with us... but hey, fair's fair! If they can light fireworks, why can't we?

And at least I had a trip to the field to look forward to today. Although I must say, after the six earth tremors between 7am (that beats my alarm clock any day – I haven’t sprung out of bed that fast EVER!) and 10:30am, I was feeling kinda shaky and not really feeling like going anywhere. Still, the Simeulue Earth Movement Show finished on the sixth tremor and (touch wood) since then hasn’t bothered us. However, we are all waiting for another Big One. Maybe I’ll get another wake up call tomorrow morning?

Did I mention how much I’m loving being back at work? Only 5 months to go… and I’m betting that my project won’t be finished then. Yeah, in a negative frame of mind at the moment.

Singapore again. Yay.

Friday I tearfully saw Pange off at the airport and then headed to the city for three days’ worth of hanging out in Singapore, while I waited to submit my passport for a new visa on Monday. When we’d originally booked our tickets back to Singapore from Kolkata, however many months ago, we’d done it to arrive Friday, so we could be back home in Oz for a weekend – but then when I extended my contract, this changed everything. Arriving on a Friday afternoon meant there wasn’t enough time to get a new work visa (you need a full day) so they had to put me up in a nice hotel over the weekend! How convenient!

The reality of it was that it was kinda (well actually VERY) boring being there by myself. I really wished Ange had been able to stay. It would have been way more fun. It’s not like staying in a backpackers where everyone else is keen to do what you are and there are plenty of people to meet. Everyone in my hotel was a rich holiday maker only interested in Sentosa Island (yuck!) and expensive shopping, or businessmen. As much as I get tired of shopping very quickly, I think I gave my credit card a workout in response. I had to do something while I was there. There’s not much I haven’t experienced in Singapore yet, but there’s always plenty of shopping to be done… and it was nice to go shopping where everything is easy and convenient. Unfortunately it’s pretty expensive!

I feel like I actually live in Singapore airport now. The only real memorable thing about being in Singapore – besides how refreshing (for about half a day – then I found it to be totally excessive) it was to be amongst the uber-cleanliness, operational and efficient public transport and a plethora of public toilets – was that a modelling agency representative approached me in a shopping mall and asked if I would be interested in doing some work for them. Made my day! I must be hot or something. HA! They were probably just sick of having skinny, short-ass models.

And so the fun and games are over …back to Simeulue. In some ways I’m looking forward to it, but a part of me wishes I’d gone home with Ange and had a big homecoming. I miss her already and really wish I could be part of all the catching up she plans to do! Oh well, my time will come, only 5 months to go. (I’m not really counting, but 5 months seems so much less than 6!)

Mosques, temples, street life and getting lost… again :)

The first thing we wanted to visit was an unusual Hindu temple located quite some way from the city centre, so we set off on the subway – yes, Kolkata has one, and it’s great! (not quite as efficient as Singapore’s or Paris’ metro, but awesome all the same – and it moves a huge number of people around the city). The other thing about transport in Kolkata – the strange 3-wheeled trucks cutting around the place. They’re used for transporting goods around, are one wheeled at the front and contain a wooden rear tray, almost like a ute. Random! The city also has trams, another legacy of the British. Overall, the city’s transport system is excellent. On first impressions, it doesn’t really seem to fit, but you soon realise just how much of a strong influence the British had on this city, and it makes sense.

Once we’d managed to get out there and jump on a bus, we made it to Dakshineswar Kali temple. It was quite an amazing structure, strikingly coloured in just two colours, cream and marone; and it looked almost like it was built out of Lego from the curved, but stepped, domes that flanked it. There were a great number of pilgrims milling about and paying their respects to various Hindu deities.

We wanted to cross the river to visit another temple, but we’d unfortunately managed to finish our visit at the same time as the ferryman was having his lunch. So we hung out with the local kids until it was time to leave, and then cruised back into the city to look for our next sight: the strikingly red, grand old Writer’s Building on Dalhousie Square.

Originally the home of the British publishing elite, the Writer’s Building is now the home of Kolkata’s parliamentarians. Unfortunately, the building is off limits for all photography. But we learned this the other way around: first, NO PHOTOS – as every frantically waving policeman tried to tell us – but we didn’t know why until we’d found an English speaker who could tell us! The old Post Office is also located on Dalhousie square. Unfortunately the square was under renovation at the time of our visit, so we couldn’t see the extent of the colonial architecture that flanks it.

Kolkata is a really interesting blend of architectural styles. There are the grand old colonial buildings that flank squares and surround fountains, that are well maintained and important in the city’s history; but yet there are countless others that have not been maintained and are slowly crumbling behind their now grimy paintwork. You can look up on just about any street, and see a beautiful old dome or façade that clearly was part of the city’s past glory, but is now almost falling down. I was constantly amazed by the plethora of old, dirty and unloved buildings that were loftily perched above the craziness on the streets below.

There’s the crumbling red brick facades of narrow apartments, with their steel latticework and carved wooden window panelling, which sit above equally narrow shop fronts on street level. Then there are the more recent additions to the city; the horrible 1970’s-style boxes with glass louvre windows that were modern in their day, but now look horribly slap-dash. Everything is covered with a layer of grime and dirt, which reflects the everyday hustle and bustle that occurs on the streets below. Many people are still very poor here, even given the wealth that the British brought to and made in the city (using poor Indians to make their millions); unfortunately it seems they took a lot of it with them. But the legacy of this wealth is reflected in the city’s well-planned layout, tree-lined boulevards and parklands, good infrastructure and elegant buildings – well-preserved or not.

There is also a blend of religious buildings; Muslim mosques and Hindu temples are dotted around the city. On our second day in Kolkata, which we spent most of trying not to be lost while hunting down various sights, we passed a beautiful Hindu temple in our wanderings, and were luckily allowed inside during prayer time by the caretaker who didn’t like the man who initially kicked us out! It was entirely constructed from white marble and had intricate human figures carved into its over-door showpiece. Another Hindu temple, unmarked on our map but still amazingly intricate and constructed from marble, we simply stumbled across, but were allowed to wander through and admire.


We also went to see Kolkata’s largest mosque, Mesjid Nakhoda. And was it big! This mosque is another gargantuan red masterpiece, with beautiful green domes. Again, we weren’t allowed to go inside because it was prayer time; but we actually preferred to be amongst the craziness of the crowded streets, winding alleyways and bustling markets surrounding the mosque itself, with its domes towering above us. This is how we spent the rest of the day, getting lost amongst the maze of streets and markets, trying not to get run over, under the gaze of the general population who don’t see many foreigners away from the tourist sites in the everyday hustle and bustle on the street. Plus a bit of shopping, which we didn’t really need, but was still fun… especially the general bartering which we so sorely missed in Bangladesh.

The seven wonders of the transport world

During our travels in Bangas & Mash, we managed to catch the following random assortment of transport:

1. Local bus
2. Rickshaw
3. Pan (rickshaw with a flat wooden tray)
4. Van taxi
5. Old school HW yellow cab
6. Baby taxi (auto rickshaw)
7. Train

All in all, a grand achievement. Now at least I can say I’ve visited the seven wonders of some sort of world. Haha.

A few days in Kooooolkata

We arrived in Kolkata after a long afternoon on a bus … which actually turned out to be a good place to be when we hit a big, loud thunderstorm! One of the first things I noticed about Kolkata was how modern it seemed in comparison to Bangladesh, how well maintained the roads and general infrastructure were, but the most outstanding thing – how many of those old-school yellow cabs there were! Everywhere!

We were roped into staying a hotel when we arrived, but it was cheap, suitable and near to everything. As we had no information about the city, we proceeded to cruise to the nearest bookshop we could find and buy a map.

Our second task in Kolkata: to get some money! So off we went exploring, trying to find an ATM that would accept our cards. Once that task was done, we’d oriented ourselves to our general area, so it had taken a while. We were staying near a big old building called the Dutch Tower. It was built in the middle of a large open square; the inside of the building was a market selling all sorts of interesting Indian and non-Indian items, and the surrounding streets sold all sorts of touristy crap. I would have liked to have a general browse inside, but for all the official touts hassling you as soon as you got anywhere near the square. It was really frustrating and they were REALLY persistent, so we just pissed off outta there and cruised around the surrounding streets to hunt down some of that delicious Indian food, check out some of the little shops and get oriented. And then we were done for the day.

Using our fancy-pants (but in the end, shitty) map, we decided on all the landmarks we wanted to see. We were planning on actually seeing some of them this time(!), but in the end everything was a lot further apart than we realised, so we just ended up wandering around and getting to know the place. And as you’ll read, we spent a lot of time getting lost. We hated that map by the end!

Day three in Kolkata...

By now we’d worked out that everything is much further away than it seems, so we planned more of a modest day of checking out the place! Today was the day that we planned to go and see the Victoria Monument, Kolkata’s best-known attraction. And for good reason: it’s huge, it’s set in amazingly manicured grounds, and it’s beautiful. It epitomises the British colonial influence, and was clearly built to stamp their authority on the city – and of course pay tribute to the Queen. But it’s certainly a great legacy the British left to Kolkata. I was a bit miffed at the ten-times entry fee for foreigners vs locals, which pretty much cleaned us out!

But it was worth it; a wander around the grounds is a cool respite from the heat; the trees and lawns are beautifully kept; there are lovely ponds located around the gardens by which you can sit and cast your eyes over, with the white marble palace looming behind it all. The entrance is amazingly ornate, and opens into a huge domed foyer that almost looks like the inside of a cathedral. In the very centre is a statue of her Majesty; she is surrounded by colonial-style paintings of the royalty of old and carved marble walls that are all overlooked by the small stained-glass window in the dome’s lofty centre that sends down a shaft of light. One of those ‘aaahhhh!’ moments, but another place you can’t take photos! Damn you English! All I’ll say is, I decided to take one to test the theory, and managed to sneak one in even though I was hastily set upon by one of the grumpy guards. In fact, all of the staff in that building were pompous, self-righteous, and overly grumpy people. Boo! Felt like being in England. :P

The Victoria monument has been converted into a museum, and it hosts an extensive exhibition on the history of the city, from original Indian inhabitation, the arrival and takeover of the British, to the emergence of the city as a huge trade hub and colonial city. We spent quite a lot of time in here – and the icy cold AC was quite a large contributing factor – before heading back out into the heat to our next target – the Eden Gardens cricket ground.

It wasn’t too far away, just across some parklands that incorporated the city’s racecourse. We saw the dark grey clouds approaching, but were enjoying meandering around the big grassy expanse right in the heart of the city – which were home to quite a number of horses. They seemed very comfortable with their spacious surrounds, even though they looked quite out of place with the city skyline behind them.

Those dark grey clouds were soon above us, bringing smatterings of rain and wind that whipped through our hair. We had timed our walk through the open parklands kinda badly… and once the cracking thunder and amazing lightning display started, we started walking quite a lot more quickly! We ended up bolting to the shelter of the cricket ground in the rain, and luckily made it before it started absolutely bucketing down! We weren’t the only ones heading for its inviting cover – in about 5 minutes we were amongst a crowd of about fifty people all sheltering from the storm, which seemed never-ending.

After about an hour of waiting, which included fending off some local women who kept badgering us for money, we got chatting to some young Indian cricket team hopefuls on their way to training (actually should I say on their way home from training – it was cancelled, and for good reason!) we realised that we could actually get into the ground with little trouble. We sprinted around to the main entrance and asked if we could have a look around. No problem! Up we went into the grandstand, and admired the view of Kolkata’s international cricket ground.

It was quite interesting to look around; the big screen for replays, the tall, razor-topped fences around the ground, which were there for good reason – totally crazy Indian cricket fans – and the extremely poor drainage of the oval. The whole place was under water. Clearly it wasn’t cricket season; everything was completely grubby – not that it would be clean after a cricket match in India! We eventually got kicked out by an impatient groundskeeper, but were happy to have had a chance to visit such a venue without having to pay or to go on a guided tour. No such thing as a free ticket into a national stadium at home!

Our next plan was to wander down to the riverfront to try and see the old Fort from another angle, considering we weren’t allowed to go inside. But we never quite made it that far, as we got caught up wandering the streets of the grand old buildings of the courts and financial buildings nearby. Not to mention the yummy street food and small terracotta cups of cha that warmed the cockles of our hearts after being wet from the rain!

The very last stop on our Kolkata agenda was a little coffee house hidden away in the university quarter, surrounded by street stalls selling every type of textbook you can imagine. The coffee house is apparently a Kolkatan institution and has existed for a great number of years, providing a meeting place to cultivate the great minds of this great city. And so it was with a café latte that we finished our time in this amazing place, and wound our way back through the streets to our hotel, with much-needed sleep and a very early start the next morning on our minds. The honeymoon was almost over…

Bagerhat

Bagerhat was our next stop the following day. This town forms the centre of the largest area of archaeological monuments in Bangladesh, outside of Dhaka. The monuments, which mainly comprise unusual but beautiful multiple- and single-domed, red-brick mosques and the tombs of past Bangladeshi heroic figures, are scattered in a relatively small area which is easily visited on foot. We started at the museum and the largest structure, a 60-domed mosque, which was beautiful; the other mosques and tombs were relatively untouristed and we could wander around them at our leisure. It was nice to just walk around the area generally, because the monuments were located in and around the town, so we were walking along little, windy paved lanes between people's houses, rice padis, ponds and soccer fields, passing schoolgirls on their way home, old women out walking, kids playing cricket and rickshaw drivers.

Along the way we encountered various people, all of whom were interested in talking to us, including an eccentric old man who invited us into his home, introduced us to his family, and we went through the usual photos and detail-swapping routine. It was an amusing encounter, but we found it difficult to get out of there!

We then made our way to Khulna by bus. There we randomly met a guy by the name of Rigan, who was very enthusiastic about being our new best friend in Khulna. No problem for us! He took us around Khulna and showed us his University (which he greatly relished, because he could walk around in the company of two white women in front of all of his classmates), where we also met another student, Azam, who both joined us for lunch. Rigan then invited us to his home (which involved a canoe across the river and a long pan ride) to meet his family. It was a nice way to see the city, and good to also get out of it for a while and into the suburbs where he lived. His family were lovely and insisted we stay for lunch, and in the end we spent the whole afternoon there.

Afterwards we made our way back to the city and went to his student accommodation, which was in a small school providing additional tuition for local students in many subjects: maths, science, English etc. It was there that we met his friend Amin, another tutor, and introduced ourselves to their class of students, so that they could practice their English. It was good fun. Afterwards we made our way to the local cinema, where Azam also joined us. We really wanted to catch a Dhallywood flick. After seeing the posters around everywhere we were intrigued to know how they compared to Bollywood.

It was quite an interesting experience! The cinema was dingy and poorly maintained, and the movie was called "Why Arif became a robber". It was hilarious! The quality of the movie was horrible, the sound extremely loud, and the action ongoing - not to mention totally unrealistic! Punches were swung, guns fired, people went flying! What I found interesting was that all the women in the movie were not the beautiful, curvaceous, dark-haired beauties of the Bollywood world - they were all very chunky, almost overweight, but still wearing the tight-fitting, revealing clothes I expected. And they couldn't act, nor dance. Neither could the male actors. Plus the power kept cutting out, much to the dismay of the crowd, which just added to the experience. All in all it was perfect - just how this sort of movie should be! Ange and I couldn't help laughing all through the movie, and our three friends just couldn't understand why we found it so hilarious.

The next day we had planned to go back to Kolkata, and at this news our new friends were quite sad, but in the end we decided to stay to give us time to cruise around the markets and have an undisturbed day just walking around. We hadn't told Rigan and Amin this, but later on that night we decided to call them up and invite them to dinner. They were absolutely overjoyed that we hadn't yet left Khulna and were on our doorstep as soon as we could say Khazam! So we had one last evening with them, which was fun, we hung out in the park for a while, cruised around the streets and then to dinner, before leaving us at our hotel.

We still had a few days left of our trip, and we liked the idea of exploring the famous city of Kolkata before heading home instead of spending all our time in Bangas. Plus we felt like we'd done our dash in Bangas. So, accordingly, the next morning we cruised down to the train station to head back to Kolkata.

Mongla and the Sunderbans

We had read that Khulna was the best place to get a tour of the Sunderbans, but it was 40km away; Mongla was only 5km from the forest. We wanted to go on an overnight trip so we could get right down into the forest, because from Mongla it was apparently difficult to get more than a ‘taster tour’ of the reserve. As we wanted to get in there and see the forest without having to go all the way up to Khulna and then back, we decided to just take a day trip into the Sunderbans. We weren’t going deep into the forest – which basically put the kibosh on any chance of seeing a tiger! – but we liked the idea of just cruising through the forest and seeing some of it. So we did.

The next day, we jumped on our cute little tourist boat – painted red and blue and complete with potplants! – and headed off. Our guides were lovely guys and taught us a lot about the river, and we just cruised around some of the channels that snake through the northern reaches, initially passing small villages and rice padis; the further we ventured into the forest, the smaller the channels became and the forest closed in around us. Our first stop was the much-patronized Forestry Dept check point where we had to get our entry permit, and there was also a visitors’ centre with monkeys and spotted deer patrolling the edges of a mangrove boardwalk, bird hides, and a crocodile farm. Kinda creepily, one of our guides took great delight in feeding the caged crocodiles live frogs! This was apparently the limit to most Bangladeshi tourists’ visit to the Sunderbans, which is a pity because there is so much more to see.

The rest of the day we just cruised around the forest, on the lookout for life amongst the mangroves; but we knew that if we were to see anything, it would just be deer or birds. We didn’t really believe we’d see any tigers this close to civilisation; our guides had only seen two tigers in eleven years of guiding. The main wildlife we came across were birds, and also river dolphins. Every now and then they’d surface just ahead of our boat. They were quite unusual looking creatures, with tube-like noses.

As we were coming back, we came across a tourist boat with a motor problem, so we towed them back to Mongla. And then a big thunderstorm hit, and the rain fell – plenty of it! Our poor boat driver got drenched, but we were nice and dry in our little cabin. It was a surreal experience, cruising slowly on the river with the rain bucketing down around us and the thunder and lightning making a sound and light show. Other boats on the river glided by like ghost ships. It was cool. And luckily for us, the rain eased just as we made it back to port. So in all, we really only did get a taster tour of the Sunderbans, and looking back we should have made our way to Khulna to organise a two- or three-day tour to see it properly. But we still really enjoyed it.

Ridin' the Rocket

The paddlesteamer was a grand old maid of the river. We were some of the few people travelling first class, so we got a double AC cabin and meals served to us up the front; the rest of the passengers had natural AC and slept on the floor of the two decks in the centre of the boat. It was really relaxing chugging along the river at a cruisy pace, watching the world go by. We spent a night on the boat and a majority of the next day getting to Morogonj, which gave us plenty of time to relax, read books, chat, and play cards. For me, it went fairly quickly; but for poor Ange, who was sick for much of the trip, it would have seemed like forever. Poor bugger! While I was up on the roof of the boat, at the invitation of the captain, she was down below getting acquainted with the toilet.

The scenery of the river is really interesting, even over many hours. It doesn’t change much but there’s always lots to see. The river meandered through a countryside of rice padis and farms, past passenger ferries and fishing canoes, and small riverside towns where the steamer docked and picked up/let off passengers. The river dolphins that glided by from time to time were also a highlight.

We finally made it to Morogonj where our task was then to find our way to Mongla. Destination: Sunderbans! We wanted to take a boat cruise in the largest mangrove forest in the world, and Mongla was the closest city to it. After a few initial hassles of organising how we were going to get there (carrying our big packs on the back of motorbikes wasn’t looking like a good concept), we jumped on a bus and then a pan and then a cab, and finally ended up where we wanted to go. Our taxi ride was kinda interesting, particularly given the soundtrack: Shania Twain… Man, I felt like a woman that afternoon!

It's time to go ... Dhaka!!!

On Wednesday (Ange’s birthday – yay!), it was finally time to get our asses out of Dhaka. While we could easily have stayed longer, hung out with L&A and seen more of the city, in some ways we were looking forward to leaving, not only to see more of the country but to get away from the intensity of the place! It sure is one of the most intense places I’ve ever visited, not only because you’re a walking curiosity that draws a crowd the minute you stop, but for the heat and humidity, constantly sweating, having dirt under your fingernails, the constant hassling by the very- and not-so-poor (not that I blame them) and the horrendous traffic.

We had bought tickets for a boat affectionately known in Dhaka as “the Rocket” a couple of days before, and were to take it that evening. The Rocket is a huge orange paddlesteamer that regularly plies the river southwards to the city of Khulna; we were taking it to Morogonj. Interesting name for a boat that moves at a snail’s pace. Anyway... That morning we headed down to the old city once more to try and find somewhere to deposit our backpacks. We found out that we were able to actually put them directly into our cabin, so we jumped on a canoe and cruised around the busy port of Dhaka.

It was one of the highlights of our trip. The port is a bustling scene of organised chaos. There are canoes plying the river left-right-and-centre, transporting dozens of people and a plethora of goods (watermelons, pineapples, fishing nets, mechanical parts) across its waters, rusty old passenger ferries being cleaned by their smiling, waving crewmen, people washing on the steps of the river bank (and in their canoes!), lines of washing hanging out to dry and flying above it all, amazingly, numerous brown falcons, always watching for something to bomb down and snaffle. This all goes on in front of the crumbling riverfront façade of a dirty South Asian city dotted with amazing old mosques, the Lalbagh Fort and the stately Pink Palace, which shines like a beacon in the sun. It was quite extraordinary to experience. The waterways really are the main form of transport in Bangladesh. The sheer quantity of people moved on its waterways every day would be an astounding figure.

Have a look at my album of Bangladesh pics to get a better idea of this scene and all of the other places we visited: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40582&l=95ef8&id=543196685

Our boat crew took us up a side canal (which can really only be described as a smelly, dirty sewer) to get a better insight into everyday life in Dhaka. It amazes me how people can live in such crowded conditions, amongst such huge amounts of garbage. It’s really not good. I can’t imagine their drinking water quality would be very good either.

The more I saw of Dhaka, and Bangladesh generally, the more I realised how much more beneficial my work could be there, instead of Indo. People in Aceh, and tsunami beneficiaries in particular, are so much better off than people in Bangladesh. Rich even. I haven’t ever seen such poverty as I did in Bangladesh. So many people on the street asking for money, and the rest just struggling to live every day.

It was interesting talking to some Swiss Red Cross people we met later on in our trip, in Mongla; they said they just can’t get the money to do beneficial work in Bangladesh. There isn’t the focus there like in Indonesia, which has received so much media attention and international aid funding because of the tsunami. There are so many dirt-poor people in Bangladesh that need assistance – and that’s before any part of the country floods each year. I almost said yes immediately when the guy from Swiss RC said they needed a WatSan person there!

That said, there are plenty of poor people in Indonesia itself that need the same sort of help, but they live outside of Aceh and weren’t tsunami victims, so they don’t get anything. It’s really unfair the way things work in the world. Pity that more rich governments and people in developed countries don’t give more money to people who really need it. Or that corrupt people in third world governments continue to pocket money meant for their own people. But I could rant and rave about this all day. Back to the story.

After a great start to our second day in the old city, we made our way to the Pink Palace, which after our random first day of getting lost, we didn’t actually get to see. The Pink Palace is a huge colonial-style building set on the banks of the river in sprawling grounds. It was built for long-ago royalty of Bangladesh, but it looks like a colonial English building for the Queen. And yes, it definitely was pink; they could have come up with a more original name. It’s a nice escape from the craziness of the street because you have to pay to get in, and you don’t get bugged. Some university students befriended us and showed us around the Palace, which has been converted into a museum.

We then continued our wandering around the old city, got some food, accepted invitations for chai by crazy vendors, wandered around the waterfront and through all the vegetable markets, and then hit the sari markets to peruse some of the beautiful fabrics. An afternoon thunderstorm and massive downpour – which flooded the streets – kinda stuffed up our plans for arriving on time at the port to take the Rocket … so after waiting as long as possible, getting a rickshaw to the wrong docking platform, then back to the right one, and then running around in the rain to actually find the bloody place, we made it just in time.