A flavour of Bangladesh (Bangladesh)

Member Name: Yvie

Product:	Bangladesh
Date:	30/01/03 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Culture, Not touristy at all

Disadvantages: Poverty of others, Long flight

I had an interesting experience of Bangladesh in January 2001 in that I was able to stay there for two weeks with my friend, who is a Bangladeshi national and lives in the ex-pat area of the capital, Dhaka. I could go on and on about my experiences to help you decide whether it is the place for you, but I will try to be concise!

I flew with Emirates, which I would highly recommend, and I chose this airline due to the change of flight in Dubai. You can fly straight through with other airlines, but as a nervous flyer I needed to break (the journey is around 13 hrs in total). My friend also flies Emirates when she visits the UK.

It was to be a trip of culture shocks, the first being the number of spectators outside the airport, crammed behind screens and railings, just there to look at the passengers arriving. As a white person I was already attracting some interest.

Shock number two was the short car journey to my friend's house - the traffic conditions are unbelievable! There are car horns hooting constantly, and guys on rickshaws weaving all over the place. Forget anything you know about indication signals since they mean different things over there. Outside the cities it is even worse - on a terrifyingly memorable journey to Chittagong, we experienced lorries and buses approaching on our side of the road, vehicles in the middle of the night frequently with no lights on whatsoever, buses with passengers crammed on the sides and the roof and unlit rickshaws appearing out of the gloom. In a car you are frequently run off the road by approaching lorries and buses.

Dhaka is an interesting city, and was able to travel on rickshaws as well as by car. I was taken to see some fantastic architecture, but I also saw heartbreaking poverty, with people living in makeshift shacks and spending their days sorting through rubbish for anything of value to sell. There are also many beggars who tap your car window and plead for coins.


The climate in January is very dry and like a good English summer's day, and everywhere is dusty in anticipation of the rainy season. Travel south to Chittagong and beyond to see the beautiful rainforests and the only mountainous area (Bangladesh is otherwise flat), and here I was something of a novelty as a foreigner, and was amused by teenage girls staring and giggling at the sight of me!

There are some excellent restaurants in Dhaka covering many nationalities, and the cost of living there is unsurprisingly cheap. Many people speak English, and aspire to be in the UK so may try to befriend you, and all the people I encountered were lovely. Buy silks (a good sari can be about £7) clothes and shoes, or a piece of rickshaw art.

My enduring memory is of the divide between rich (ie you and me) and poor, and I had problems dealing with the fact that so many people employ cooks, nannies, cleaners, drivers etc in their houses as a matter of course.

My brief existence in Bangladesh seems somewhat charmed since I had the perfect guides, so I am not sure how backpackers would fare and I couldn't comment on the accommodation available. For me it was a trip that I shall never forget.

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