Sylhet

I had my first visitors from the United States – Mary (who I consider to be my debate mentor) and her friend Carolyn.  We’d also had two teachers from a monastery school in Nepal visiting the school for the month of February.  I thought it would be fun for all of us to head north and visit the tea country.  My friend Barry is trying to start a tour company, so he arranged everything and provided a guide to take us from Dhaka.

We took the train north.  This was a last minute trip, so we couldn’t get a first class AC cabin.  Instead we were in a normal car.  Fortunately we had the guide, because he had to remove people from our seats.  The normal car was fine because it gave us a more realistic experience and allowed us to talk to the Bangladeshi people on the train.  Keeping the windows open gave us great picture-taking opportunities, although it also meant my face was covered in dirt and soot by the time we arrived in Sylhet.

 

The trip up took most of the day, so the first night we just had time to visit several shrines.  It was Friday, so they were closed to women and very crowded.  While Kalsang, Tenzing and I battled the crowds of worshipers, Mary and Carolyn stayed behind in the women’s area.  In Dhaka, the local people see few foreigners and will follow you around and ask you to take their pictures.  In Sylhet, they see even fewer foreigners.  Here, they would ask to take your picture (or your picture with them) and want to talk to you.  All of us kept attracting large crowds.  In the pictures below I’m being quizzed on my knowledge of Islam (FYI, Mohammed is not a prophet, he’s the prophet), and Kalsang and I are being photographed.

 

 

Day Two was Independence Day in Bangladesh, and actually the 40^th Anniversary of independence.  Now I feel old realizing I’m almost 25% older than the country I live in!  We kept running into small parades of children celebrating the holiday.  We were also accosted by highwaymen of sorts – at one intersection these guys in painted faces and fake beards blocked the road demanded a toll to let our car pass.  The driver was arguing with them, and it might have gotten ugly, but then I took out my camera to photograph them and they quickly agreed to a small gift ($2) and let us through.

 

We went through one large town that had a huge viewing area set up and hundreds of students assembled.  We stopped to take pictures and quickly attracted the police.  I thought we were going to be harassed for taking photographs; no, we were being invited by the mayor to join him in the viewing stand to watch the festivities.  We of course agreed.  It was a little awkward sitting in the front, with the people we displaced forced to sit or stand behind us.  The children re-enacted various scenes leading up to independence and it was quite entertaining.  We stayed long enough to be polite and then continued our journey.

 

 

We next visited a famous waterfall.  With it still being drought season, there was little water.  However, there were hundreds of people here.  It was strange to see the men, in only shorts, swimming with their wives/girlfriends, in veils.  I think we were photographed more than the waterfall itself.

We hit a sudden rain storm right after that.  The sky looked like tornadoes were coming, although I don’t know if they get them here.  The wind was bending trees over and it was very difficult for people walking or on rickshaws to get to cover.  I think I just had a preview of what monsoon season is going to be like.  We had lunch at CRP (a rehabilitation complex).  We were supposed to walk through the forest and visit a village after that.  Unfortunately the rain had flooded the paths and we decided not to risk it.  All of the tea plantations were closed for the holiday, so we just walked through some of the fields.

We had to leave on the second morning.  We had business class seats on a modern bus.  The seats at the front of the bus are actually just like first class seats on a plane – very wide and fully reclining.  My friend Barry had warned me not to put the ladies in the front row.  I quickly realized why.  The highways in Bangladesh are two lane roads with almost no swale and steep drop-offs on the side.  They are crowded with pedestrians, rickshaws and other slow moving vehicles.  The buses and large trucks drive like maniacs, continuously blowing their horns and passing when they shouldn’t.  At one point we pulled out right in front of a small truck.  It went careening off the road, and we raced on.  I am sure we caused an accident because some people started running and others grabbed rocks to throw at the bus.  I checked the newspapers for the next two days looking for any reports on the accident.  Although there were dozens of accidents, and more than 50 people killed, none of the accidents sounded like ours.  It was so disturbing to know we left the scene of an accident and that we might have killed someone.  I won’t ride in another bus in Bangladesh.

I end with a picture of people going to market.  Does anyone know what those large vegetables are?