Published by Johnny on August 10, 2011
Bangladesh is a country that most people skip on their Asian backpacking trip, and it’s a real shame. Sandwiched between 2 backpacking hotspots, India and Thailand, I’m surprised that more people don’t take the plunge and visit a country where the warmth of people can’t fail to impress you.
 Ahsan Manzil in Dhaka Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world, but not a day will pass without an invite to someone’s house for some tea. Walking around anywhere in this fascinating country and you’ll feel like a celebrity, groups of people will follow you around daily and should you stop and try to ask someone a question, you’ll literally be surrounded within 60 seconds – it’s a crazy feeling!
If your wandering soul takes you off the beaten track to the shores of Bangladesh, make sure you squeeze in these five gems during your time there:
1) Dhaka: The capital and probably your starting point for the adventure ahead. If you’ve never visited the subcontinent you’re in for a treat. If you’re feeling like jumping in at the deep-end, head over to Old Dhaka and sort out your accommodation – just don’t expect much luxury! Then you can spend a day or two checking out Lalbagh Fort, Ahsan Manzil and Para Bibi’s Tomb, or make your way down to Buriganga river and rent a small boat to see the hustle and bustle of Dhaka from the water front. One trip to Dhaka, and you’ll never forget it – I assure you of that!
 Lalbagh Fort Dhaka 2) The Sundarbans: Located near Khulna, the Sundarbans mean it’s safari time! This mangrove forest is home to over 400 Royal Bengal tigers – you can sort out your safari from either Khulna or Dhaka. Expect to pay around $30 for everything, which is a great bargain considering what you may see. No guarantees on the tigers I’m afraid folks, but always worth the gamble!
 Bengal Tiger on Safari 3) Cox’s Bazar: The longest sea beach in the world! Over 120km long, what more could you ask for!? This place offers great respite from the madness of Bangladesh, and it’s dotted with religious sites too. The beaches get quite crowded and there’s plenty of accommodation to be found upon arrival.
 Cox's bazar beach 4) Bagerhat: Accessible from Khulna or Mongla, Bagerhat offers a couple of impressive Mosques and the famous tomb of Khan Jahan Ali. Lots of locals make pilgrimages here daily so expect some organized chaos!
 Shat Gambuj Mosque in Bagerhat 5) Nafa-Khum: This one is a bit of a wild card. You’re already off the beaten track by simply being in Bangladesh but if you want to really get away from it all, then this is the place for you. Nafa-Khum is a beautiful waterfall found a 3hours walk from Remakri, which is found 3 hours by boat from Tindu, which is a 3 hours drive from Thanchi! It may not be the biggest waterfall but it’s awesome none-the-less and you can swim in the pool, the trek is beautiful too and you’ll really feel like you’re traveling if you make it out here!
 Nafa-Khum waterfall There you go folks, five of Bangladesh’s most awesome sites. This country is not easy to travel in, not by a long shot, but it’s well worth the effort. This is real backpacking! Happy Travels!
Tags: Bangladesh, top 5
Published by Johnny on July 30, 2011
I should quickly add that this is my second post related to both Bangladesh and prostitutes – that’s a tad harsh on Bangladesh to be honest, but it’s just the way my travels panned out.
I had been in Bangladesh a week or so, we (my 2 friends and I) had taken a rocket steamer boat down to the Bay of Bengal, we disembarked in Kulna in southern Bangladesh. We were still getting the crazy stares from the bemused Bangladeshi general public when a very cheery guy came springing over with his hand extended “Welcome to Bangladesh my friends, we are so happy to have you” – with a grin the size of a Cheshire cat.
 Rocket Steamer to the Bay of Bengal In countries like Bangladesh you’re just delighted that someone can speak English and help you out of any tight spots you find yourself in. This guy helped us out with some accommodation, invited us to dinner at his house, introduced us to his extended family. Then tea round at his place with his wife . Great guy – but a great guy with a different take on how to build on new friendships….
A couple of days later we were due to leave Kulna and our cheery friend insisted that we go and meet his special friend. It was a strange way to structure a sentence, but he was a strange dude so I let it slide. We hopped onto two rickshaws and made our way through the backstreets of Kulna for a good 30 minutes or so.
 Our Local Transport “We have arrived gentlemen, now come and see my special friend” HeHeHeHe – he was giggling like a little school girl, seriously. We entered this dodgy house, up two flights of dilapidated stairs and then into an apartment. A huge fat Bangladeshi woman was waiting to greet us, our friend marched into the room, gave her a hug and kiss, turned to us and giggled again.
“This is my special friend, go into the room Johnny, you’re first”.
“First? First? Errrrrr, First for what exactly?!” Queue somemore incessant giggling and an awkward atmosphere just got a lot more awkward.
“First with my friend, she is so fat, so beautiful – we love the fat woman, this one is the post popular in all of Kulna”
What the hell is going on here?! I shared some disgustingly strange looks with my mates and looked over at our Bangladeshi friend.
“Don’t worry, you’re my esteemed guests – I will go fourth of course, you gentlemen can go first, second and third”
WTF?! Yep, our new friend is trying to make me do the deed with a grotesquely fat Bangladeshi woman, complete with full Hijab head-scarf, then 2 of my best friends are expected to follow up and finally our Bangladeshi man will complete this wonderful mixing pot with the fourth installment, and he would foot the bill. Marvelous. Needless to say, we thanked him profusely for this generous offer but our (imaginary) wives would be so upset that we couldn’t possibly accept his ‘gift’, but were it not for them – we’d be delighted. We made our excuses, asked to be shown out, arranged to meet at the train station the following day and he quickly turned right back around and straight back up the stairs to the Bangladeshi hippo waiting on the second floor. I don’t even want to imagine what happened next.
Tags: Bangladesh, crazy stories
Published by Johnny on July 21, 2011
Guide book – no, local currency – no, map – no, knowledge of the language – no, accommodation booked – no, injections – no… this was my check list as I flew from Bangkok To Dhaka, Bangladesh’s underdeveloped capital. To say I was unprepared would be a bit of an understatement, but it all works out in the end, right? Hmmm…
 My hotel in Old Dhaka After a long day trekking around Dhaka where my first memory was eating curry with my wrong hand and getting scolded by the ‘restaurant owner’, we were handed a life-life – a Bangladeshi draped proudly in an England football shirt came bounding over to welcome us to his country in English (a rare talent in Bangladesh, and my Bengali was a little lacking), and then later that evening, to his house.
After having dinner with his extended family, he insisted on walking us back to our hotel. Thanks to my serious lack of preparation for this trip, we had ended up staying in a hotel in ‘Old Dhaka’, where running water and electricity were at a real premium. Air-con had yet to be introduced to Old Dhaka and the 40 degree heat was overbearing.
 The corridor in my hotel Anyway, Raul (our Bangladeshi friend) called one of his friends to meet us. He took great pride in being new friends with seemingly the only white people in Dhaka (certainly in Old Dhaka). We had some tea and then went back to the lobby of our hotel. There, we chatted with Raul and his friend who happens to be a female. We chatted for 30 minutes or so, told him we’d meet for lunch the next day and headed up stairs to our room, dodging rats and cockroaches quite successfully on the way.
 My luxury room - before it was raided by the secret police I went to sleep around 11am, and I was in a deep slumber until I was awoken by the most aggressive pummelling of my hotel room door. “WTF is that, what time is it, 4am”?!!?
I jumped up, pulled some clothes on and tentatively opened the door to my room when a loud Bangladeshi guy burst through the door, followed by 3 of his big, burly friends! Flash lights in our face, shouting in a language I knew nothing of. This was not good.
After a few words were exchanged, nothing was understood and I was pretty terrified. One of the guys with a Government badge went and dragged the hotel manager up to translate.
“You are with a brown girl, tonight, with a brown, Bangladeshi girl – where is she!?”
“Huh?! It’s our mate’s mate, what’s going on”
“You’re having sex with a prostitute, it’s illegal. Why you do this in my hotel?!”
“What are you talking about? We shared a coffee left”
“You lie, you lie, this is big problem in Bangladesh, big money”
They proceded to search our room again – cartoon style. Looking under the bed, then in the cupboards, then under the sheet on the bed (I think you would have noticed the her under that mate – genius). They then imformed us that if they find her we will go to prison and have to pay a fine. “How much?!” I asked. “If she’s beautiful, very much. If she’s not so beautiful and fat, not so much”. Ok, good to see the justice system is working nice and fairly then.
After another couple of minutes they realized she wasn’t in our room (good work Sherlock), they apologized and left within 20 seconds, leaving me and my mates to go back to bed very thankful she wasn’t there, and wondering about what the rest of our time in Bangladesh will entail!
Tags: Bangladesh, crazy stories, dhaka
Published by Johnny on May 24, 2010
After leaving our new adopted Bangladeshi family in Dhaka we managed to procure some ‘second-class’ tickets for the rocket steamer (gotta love boats!) down towards the Bay of Bengal, which we planned to get off in Khulna and try, from there, to make our way to Calcutta in India.
Incidentally, I recently read a book called ‘The Lunatic Express’ and I had to giggle when I saw our old trusted rocket steamer feature as one of the most dangerous boat journeys in the world, apparently over 1000 people die each year on Bangladesh ferries – the highest ratio of deaths to journeys in the world – I’m glad I had read the book prior to our departure or our $4, two day journey mightn’t have felt quite as good value.
The ridiculous hospitality of our adopted Bangladeshi family had continued as Raul had arranged family of his to meet us in the Khulna port when we arrived which removed some of the trepidation that I was constantly flooded with throughout Bangladesh (probably partly due to the huge holes I saw in the boat we were about to disembark on). So we boarded and off we went! The three of us had our own cabin which apparently was one step down from the luxury travel but a hell of a step up from 200 people squeezed head to foot in an open room on the basement of the boat so we were happy enough.
I headed to the back of the ferry and had one long gaze back at Dhaka, it had been a hell of a start to my new backpacking life and one that would hold me in good stead in the years to come..
Dhaka had been a hectic place but one worthy of a visit for sure and we felt as if we were leaving in true Bangladeshi fashion, this boat was an experience itself and I was relishing every moment. The scenery over the next 40 hours was amazing and the widespread damage from all the flooding is there for anyone to see, this country seems bereft of any hills, mountains or hump of any description! As we meandered down the river we past scores of ‘ports’ where the people were full of frantic smiles, laughs and waves..
To be honest the 40 hours or so flew by, we had constant visitors peering into our cabin making sure the rumours they heard about the 3 young white guys were true. Wandering around the boat kept me occupied for a long time too as did fighting off the various insects and cockroaches that were cohabiting our cabin for the evening, before too long we were approaching Khulna which would be our next and last leg of the Bangladesh adventure, praying that Azim would be waiting for us at the port :S
Tags: Backpacking, Bangladesh, boats, cheap travel
Published by Johnny on April 30, 2010
We had our hotel in Dhaka sorted so now it was time to do some sight-seeing, first-off was a trip to the waterfront, Sadarghat, on the banks of the river Buriganga- this place is an eyeopener for sure! Crowded with ferries, boats, paddle steamers, fisherman’s boats and dhabas all hiving with business and commotion
If you make it to Dhaka I recommend making your way to the waterfront. From here you can hitch a ride on one of the boats and ride around the river, sure it’s filthy but you get a real feel of the old city this way and for half the price of a can of coke you can’t go too wrong.
After getting covered in the dirtiest water this side of the India we thought we’d continue our trek through Dhaka, next up was the countries largest Mosque. For me, this is what traveling is all about; I’m not ashamed to admit, being a caucasian lad from a small town in Ireland I wasn’t exactly clued up on the world’s religions, but in the 3 or 4 years I have been traveling I have been exposed to Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Ba’haism and Judaism is some depth and now I feel more than comfortable holding a conversation about any of these religions. So, this was my first direct exposure to Islam and the people in the Mosque were overwhelmingly happy to see us there – a really positive experience and one I will never forget.
We spent the next couple of days exploring the area and the place never ceased to amaze me. The heat was almost unbearable but the peoples’ warm smiles more than compensated and although the blatant staring never let up, you come to realise that there is no malice in their eyes – only intrigue and wonder, which in fairness is the same thing our stares were carrying right back to them so I guess we were even! Here are a few of the sights we came across:
 Ahsan Manjil (The Pink Palace) in Dhaka  Lalbagh Fort, Dhaka
 Crazy balancing man in Dhaka Things were about to get a lot more interesting. We met a guy in the mall who basically adopted us as his foreign friends, before we knew it we were playing cricket and having dinner in the slums!
 Our extended Bangladeshi Family  Playing cricket in Bangladesh  Our accommodation for the evening Rahul and Azim really took care of us, let us into their homes, showed us around the city – what a cracking experience. With their help we devised a plan to get to India, we were going to take the steam boat down the river Buriganga to Khulna, just off the bay of Bengal. From there we can make our way to India.
So off we went in search of tickets to this rocket steamer….
 Searching for the ticket kiosk to get the boat Onto the boat we went (but i do love boats!)… again the only white people to be seen…
Tags: Backpacking, Bangladesh, cheap travel
Published by Johnny on April 13, 2010
I finished my contract teaching English in Thailand, I had been in Asia well over a year by now and felt quite a home in the continent…. until I went to Bangladesh, suddenly – not so much.
So here was the plan:
1) Finish teaching contract in Chiang Mai
2) Travel around Asia for as long as the money lasts on a ridiculously cheap budget
3) Get to Australia without flying after we touch down on our first destination
Sounds pretty easy, I wanted to go to India to start and then pretty much loop across the whole continent over the next year or two although it didn’t quite work out like that and rather than go straight to India I found a cheap flight to Bangladesh – and so the hardcore backpacking began :S
I roped two friends into the crazy trip (Swede and Andy), we flew from Bangkok to Dhaka, the Capital of Bangladesh – as I was semi-permanently leaving Thailand the week before so my the week before I set off was inundated with leaving parties, sad goodbyes and tearful partings so I didn’t really get time to actually plan anything for the trip to Bangladesh. Basically, we found ourselves as the ONLY white people in a 1970′s airplane on Air Bangladesh one-way to Dhaka. I had no idea what language they spoke, what their currency was, what the climate or cuisine was liked, if they spoke English, I had no accommodation booked, no idea if there was anything to see and no direction in which to travel. Oh shit.
Straight after landing the plane we were swamped by Bangladeshis, people stopped, jaws dropping, giggling, pointing, running up and touch us etc In fact, people running up to us in awe and amazement became quite a theme throughout my time in Bangladesh and I never realy got used to it although I can’t deny it wasn’t hilarious. Also, should you ever happen to be in Dhaka please walk into the middle of the street , stare straight up in the sky and point for about 15 seconds – then quickly have a look around you and I guarantee at least 500 people will be standing still looking directly up trying to see what the crazy white man is pointing at (sometimes you ave to just amuse yourself  )
We managed to get some money and a ‘taxi’ (read guy cycling while pulling a homemade wooden cart) to a hotel. It was 45 degrees and I had no idea where we were going. But we went straight to the old city, amidst a lot of shocked faces, and found a hotel for around $1 a night, no air conditioning, no cold water but cheap and on a budget of 5 GBP a day that was the most important thing – besides, when in Rome…
 My hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh We checked in and went for a walk, wandering around old Dhaka was an experience in itself. Never in my life have a seen such an overpopulated place – it was literally difficult to walk due to the sheer amount of people; and the rickshaws were everywhere, thousands of them, pouring out of every alley, ringing their bells to tell you they are coming and you need to get out of their way
 The culture shock was so large and I was so far out of my comfort zone that my head was spinning, but what can you do?! So we got stuck in, we accepted that we were going to sweat, accepted we were going to be dirty, accepted that it was going to be difficult but we were seeing things that most people will never see and experiencing a country that most people will never visit – soaking up such a different culture is the reward for all the stress, and it more than outweighs the negative aspects. As it turns out, the people of Bangladesh were so friendly and open that retrospectively I was ashamed I judged their country. They were so happy that we had made the effort to come there that anyone who could speak any English would spot us in the distance and sprint to us to see if they could help – I challenge you to find that behaviour on Oxford street.
It had been nearly a day since we arrived and we hadn’t ventured to an actual restaurant yet but our stomachs were yelling out to us so we had to take a leap of faith
 The photo is from second restaurant we braved. The food in Bangladesh was delicious, honestly. It tended to be quite a sweat, scented rice mixed with chunks of meat with lime squeezed over it and I couldn’t get enough. The same couldn’t be said about the drinks – the restaurant owners loved having us sit down in their place so they would rush over with some sort of milk, perhaps goat milk?, anyway it was revolting, vile, gag-inducingly sour but we had to take it on the chin, finish it and conjure a thankful smile. The fake smile was a work of art though, especially in countries where the locals are so friendly – you have to smile because they are so nice but you don’t want to smile too much or you could end up with 3 more glasses of the goat’s piss, so through trial and error you discover the tipping point and now I am a master
 Making our way back to the room So day 1 and 2 were under our belts we felt a lot more at ease in Bangladesh, the stress had subsided and the travel euphoria was taking over – i love that feeling. Knowing you are lucky to have the opportunity to be there, you want to savour every sight, smell, sound because you may never return to this place, not knowing what to expect with every corner you approach but relishing the excitement of it all.
I’ll chat some more about what we did in Bangladesh tomorrow – what a truly unique country.
 Tags: Backpacking, Bangladesh, cheap travel
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