January 25-27, 2015: Kuakata and Barisal

I left Dhaka on the 25th, but not until evening.  In the morning I headed back to the National Museum, taking a bicycle rickshaw through the once again very crowded streets.  It was Sunday, the start of the work week.  On the way we passed a demonstration of government supporters protesting the opposition transport blockade.  From the rickshaw, stuck in traffic, I took photos of the guys holding banners and they waved back.

It took about a half hour to get to the museum through all the traffic, and then I spent about three and a half hours there.  On the second floor, which I hadn't seen the day before, there is a good collection of arms, and some interesting furniture, including what may be the highest bed I've ever seen, with the legs below the mattress maybe four feet high.  Also on display is an 1823 marriage contract written in Persian with the following terms:  1) no second wife without the consent of the wife; 2) the husband may not be aloof from the wife for more than six months; and 3) the husband may punish the wife as long as there is no scar.  Also on display is an 1807 bill of sale for a six year old, sold for 13 taka.  Another document, described as a "self-selling deed," sold a husband, wife, and two children for 3 1/2 taka.  

I spent most of the time, though, in the two big rooms on Bangladesh's modern history, with lots of interesting photos and two films.  Several enlarged front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post are also on display, from March 1971, when the liberation war broke out, and December 1971, when it ended with the Indian invasion.  They were interesting to read.  Several Time magazine covers from the era are also on display, including one with Beverly Sills dressed up as either Queen Elizabeth I or Mary Queen of Scots, with the headline "America's Queen of Opera."  Another depicted Ted Kennedy with the headline "Could He Win in "72?"  There are also several photos of Edward Kennedy visiting refugees in Calcutta during the war.  The poster and record of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh are also on display.  I seem to remember in one of his songs he rhymed, or tried to rhyme, "Bangladesh" with "mess," as in something like "Oh what a mess in Bangladesh."

The section ends with Mujib's death in 1975.  A film in Bengali shows him speaking to a large crowd.  Another very patriotic film shown on a huge screen describes the war, and seems to omit the Indians.

From the museum I took a bicycle rickshaw to a restaurant near my hotel, and then about 3:30 took another bicycle rickshaw with a Bangladeshi guy working at my hotel to Sadarghat.  He was taking a launch to Barisal, but helped me find a launch to Patuakhali, where I was heading.  I boarded the big boat and was shown to a small cabin on the third deck, which cost me 1100 taka, about $14.

Before we left, I stood on the bow to watch all the people heading to boats and all the other activity.  A small boat sold fruit and cookies.  I walked around a bit on board.  The lowest deck was full of deck passengers lounging on mats they had brought.  The cabins on the second and third deck were filling up.  Some had television sets.  I was told there were three launches headed to Patuakhali that night and five to Barisal.  There must have been 50 or so of them lined up along the river.  I later read that 40 to 50 leave Dhaka every day.

Our launch left just after 5:30, heading southeast downriver, and seems to have one of the first two of the night boats to leave.  There are only a few day boats, to ports near Dhaka.  The river was full of small boats rowing people across the river, and there were also cargo boats.  I again saw the Rocket, getting ready to leave.  I was glad to be leaving early, as it is dark soon after 6.  We had about a half hour of light on the river.  Sunset must have been at 5:45, for that is when the call to prayer started resounding from both sides of the river.  We passed smokestacks and several ships along the shore with welders at work.

We docked briefly just after dark to pick up more passengers and then headed downriver in the dark.  A moon a little less than half provided some illumination.  The landscape seemed urban for quite a while.  Dhaka is a city of something like 15 million people.

It was chilly out on the bow, but I enjoyed cruising down the dark river in the moonlight.  I got a few hellos and inquiries, but mostly it was too cold for the Bangladeshis out in the wind.  We passed under two bridges before the river widened dramatically, a mile or more wide, about two hours after we left, as we reached the south flowing Meghna River.  The launch's searchlight occasionally illuminated big clumps of vegetation and there were lots of little fishing boats sporting orange lights.  Some got quite close to our boat.  I could spot Orion and a planet, but the moonlight and haze obscured most of the stars.  We reached what seemed to be rural areas before passing a big city on the east bank, Chandpur I think, about 9:30.

I went to bed after 10 and made the mistake of looking under my mattress.  A dozen or more cockroaches scattered.  I didn't sleep all that well, though I was warm enough under a thick, but dirty, comforter.  About 11:30 I got up for a few moments and noticed two big launches headed upriver.

I was awakened the next morning just before 5 by one of the crew who said we were nearing Patuakhali, about 150 miles from Dhaka.  The launch had left the wide Meghna and entered narrower channels, though I suspect they, too, are fairly wide.  We docked in the dark just before 5:30.  In the chilly morning I took an electric rickshaw, sort of like a golf cart, with several other passengers (I had been the only westerner on board the ship) to Patuakhali's bus station, and left on a bus to Kuakata, 40 or so miles south of Patuakhali, about 6:30. 

I watched the orange disk of the sun rise over the foggy countryside as the small, cramped bus headed south.  Harvested rice fields and banana trees lined the good road, with mist rising off the fields.  After an hour of traveling we reached the first ferry crossing, where we waited well more than an hour.  There were two more ferry crossings after that.  All three ferry crossings had big bridges being built over the channels.  South of Dhaka is a maze of waterways and islands, as the massive Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, coming from the Himalayas through India, break up into myriad channels on the way to the Bay of Bengal.

The bus reached Kuakata, on the Bay of Bengal, about 10:30 and I checked into a fairly nice, but almost deserted, hotel, getting it for just over $10, a steep discount.  Kuakata is turning into a holiday resort, but has a long way to go.  It seems it is not very busy in the winter.  My room had a television set and I was able to watch India's Republic Day parade, just starting, with President Obama as the special guest, the first American president to be invited.  It was rainy in New Delhi, at least at first, and looked cold.  I've watched these parades before, in 2012 with the Prime Minister of Thailand as guest and in 2013 with the King of Bhutan as guest.  The cameras were often on the Obamas as the military hardware and civilian floats passed by.

After the parade ended I had lunch and then started walking along the wide, long, gray sand beach about 1:30.  A few Bangladeshis were hanging out on the beach, but only right in front of town,  The rest of the beach was almost deserted.  A score or more fishing boats were anchored off the beach at the town, in what seemed shallow water.  The water seemed a bit murky, no doubt still carrying lots of silt.  I would guess the beach is about 500 feet wide.

I walked east along it for almost four and a half miles, over about two hours, going as far as I could, until I was cut off by a stream or inlet.  Trees lined the beach for the most part and fishing boats were resting on the sand at several places.  A couple of times I could hear calls to prayer inland, so there must have been villages.  A few motorcycles came by on the sand.

I passed some mangroves on the way and at the inlet at the end there were lots of mangroves, their tangled roots all very interesting.  I wandered through the mangroves and had some good views up the inlet.  A boat man offered me a ride across, but I needed to turn back.  I started back after 4, spending some time looking at the patterns made of very small balls of sand by very small crabs around their holes.  I passed quite a few dead or dying jelly fish on the beach and watched men and boys pulling in large fishing nets.  The sun disappeared into haze soon after 5:30 and I heard the wailing from the mosques about fifteen minutes later.  A half moon was out.  I got back to town about a quarter after 6, just after dark.

The next morning I took a short walk along the beach under hazy sunshine.  After an omelet and paratha breakfast I left on a bus at 10:30 bound for Barisal, 65 or so miles north.  The bus was slow and crowded, with passengers on the roof, but I had a decent seat and enjoyed the trip.  This is a conservative area, with lots of men in skullcaps and lots of veiled women.  Many of the men sport orange beards or hair, dyed that color with henna.  It seems to be much more prevalent in Bangladesh than in India.

With the three ferry crossings, it took us three and a half hours to reach Patuakahali.  There was one more ferry crossing on the way to Barisal from Patuakhali, and it was a particularly wide one, with no bridge under construction.  Just south of Barisal, a city of more than 200,000 people, there is a brand new bridge, eliminating a fifth ferry crossing.  We arrived there about 3:30.

After getting a hotel I walked around town, spending most of my time at the river front.  There were several big launches and I got lots of open mouth stares.  People were friendly, especially when I bought a sort of rice cake cooked by woman in a red sari on the waterfront.  I walked back and forth and saw the Rocket arrive just before 6 on its way to Dhaka.  I checked the departure time for the Rocket coming from Dhaka for the next morning and then watched that evening's Rocket depart at 6:30.  It had filled up in Barisal.  Some were taking it only as far as Chandpur, about halfway to Dhaka, where they could catch a train for Chittagong. 

January 20-24, 2015: Dhaka

The morning of the 20th was sunny and hazy in Yangon (Rangoon) as I made my way by taxi through the very slow, dense traffic to the airport.  My visa overstay was no problem.  I just had to pay $3 a day for the 39 days I overstayed, a totel of $117, still much cheaper than having to fly to and from Bangkok to get a new visa.

The Biman (Bangladesh's national airline) flight left a little before noon and was not full.  The plane headed northwest, flying over the hills of Burma's Rakhine and perhaps Chin states and then over clouds below.  We landed in Dhaka about 1 p.m. local time (a half hour earlier than Burma) after a flight of an hour and 40 minutes.  The clouds hovered just above the ground, like fog.  Just before landing, a flight attendant announced the temperature in Dhaka was 15 degrees, which is 59 degrees Fahrenheit.  I thought she must have been mistaken, but upon landing I found out that it was quite chilly.

My visa on arrival cost me $51, with no questions asked about a ticket out of the country or funds.  Outside the terminal, all the Bangladeshis had coats on and many had scarves.  To get to a hotel I boarded what in India is called an auto rickshaw and what in Bangladesh is called a CNG (because it runs on compressed natural gas).  The Bangladesh versions are painted green and, unlike the Indian ones, have bars, resembling a chain link fence.  Sort of a cage on wheels.

I headed to a hotel in Dhaka's old city and it took more than an hour to get there, the driving reminding me of the 1970's movie Death Race 2000 (which I've never seen but only heard about), in which one of the objects of the race is to kill pedestrians and other drivers.  My driver weaved in and out of traffic with deathless (I'm glad to say) abandon.  We didn't kill anybody, though, or even seriously injure anyone, so no bonus points for us.

On the way we passed the office of the Prime Minister and the colonial era High Court building.  When we reached the narrow streets of Old Dhaka, we slowed to a crawl amid a jumble of bicycle rickshaws, CNGs, trucks, and a very few cars and motorcycles.  There were masses of pedestrians, too.  The hotel was a disappointment, but I checked in, getting a room (Room 806 on the seventh floor) for 360 taka (about 77 to the dollar) with no hot water.  The view of the congested street below from the balcony at the end of the hall was great, though.

I took a walk along the very congested street below and at the nearest intersection found myself among dozens of shoe sellers and probably tens of thousands of shoes, all displayed on the street.  It seems Bangladeshi men like dress shoes with very pointed toes.  People were very friendly, calling out hello and asking where I was from.  I walked through a tumultuous street side bus stand, checked out another, nicer hotel, and then walked to a restaurant where I had a good dinner of half of a small chicken, nan (bread), and a lassi for 200 taka.  Back at my hotel it was cold and noisy.  I slept okay under a sort of comforter, but the water, and the air, were too cold for a shower.

I heard the call to prayer before 6 the next morning.  When I got up about 7, my room temperature was 66 degrees.  Outside it was foggy and chilly.  The street below was almost devoid of people, but not of the previous day's garbage.  I had a television in my room and was able to watch the State of the Union speech live on CNN before packing up and heading to the nicer hotel.  It was more expensive, 1200 taka a night, but cleaner and with hot water.

I ate breakfast there and then, in the hazy sunshine that had just broken out, walked towards Old Dhaka about 11, encountering a small demonstration of government supporters with red flags and banners.  The current government is headed by Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League.  The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) has been disrupting transportation to try to force a new election, and the demonstration I saw was protesting the BNP's disruptions.

I made my way through the incredibly congested streets of Old Dhaka towards the 1819 white Church of St George, which was closed.  The congestion, though, and the shops, were fascinating, with lots of friendly people.  I saw lots of police, too, armed with rifles, but seemingly relaxed.

Near the church is a warren of very narrow streets called Shankharia Bazaar, or Hindu Street, filled with Hindu artisans whose families settled in this area 300 years ago. I saw lots of clay statues of Saraswati, Brahma's consort and the goddess of learning, in various stages of construction.  Some of them were very pink.  Wedding hats, looking something like crowns, and conch shell bangles were also on sale, along with drums, guitars, and much else.  At several spots I saw women pumping water from street side hand pumps into metal jugs. 

I eventually made my way to the Ahsan Manzil, or Pink Palace, a huge rajbari, or mansion, built about 1870 by Dhaka's most prominent zamindar, or landlord.  Lord Curzon, the Viceroy after the turn of the 20th century, used to stay there when he came to Dhaka from Calcutta.  The zamindar's family fortunes declined after 1915 and eventually the building was taken over by squatters, falling into disrepair.  The building was restored in the 1980's, with period furnishings.  The lawn outside, fronting the river, however, is full of trash, and the building is still a little run down. 

The huge rooms include a ballroom, a sitting room full of plush chairs and sofas, and a dining room with a long table with 38 chairs around it and 34 plates on it.  The photos are interesting, and there is a big skull of an elephant, apparently one of the favorites of one of the zamindars.  On one wall is a list of the zamindar's charitable works up to 1901, including their cost.  The two big ones are the funding of Dhaka's first water works, with over four miles of piping, and first electrical works, both in the 1870's.  Others included things like sending people to Mecca for the Haj and sending money to France to help with a cholera outbreak.  (I like the idea of someone from the future Bangladesh sending money to France for a cholera outbreak.)

Leaving the pink palace, I spent some time on the Buriganga River waterfront just in front of the palace. The river and the riverfront were hives of activity.  Scores of big passenger boats, called launches, were lined up on the bank, bound for destinations all along Bangladesh's rivers.  Some looked fairly nice.  I boarded one and looked around.  Like most of the others, it had three decks, with private cabins on the top two decks.  In was now late afternoon and thousands of  people were making their way to the launches, which generally depart in the early evening.  The river was full of cargo vessels and rowboats ferrying people across.

I made my way to the Sadarghat boat terminal and jetty and walked along the bustling jetty full of people and their belongings, plus lots of vendors, in front of the line of launches.  I was standing at one end of the long jetty, which runs parallel to the riverbank, when one of the famous Rockets came down the river and tied up.  The Rockets are paddle wheel passenger boats built in the early 20th century and still in service.  It was interesting to see its paddle wheel, on the side of the vessel, but the Rocket looked quite inferior in cleanliness and comfort to the newer launches.  Nevertheless, I saw five foreign tourists board it, heading to Barisal or perhaps further.  They used to run all the way to Khulna.

I got lots of curious stares from the crowds on the jetty.  Sometimes three or four guys would come up close and stare intently with open mouths, something I remember from traveling in India in 1979, but haven't noticed in my recent trips to India.  About 5:30 I took a bicycle rickshaw to the restaurant I had eaten in the night before, and after dinner walked back to my hotel.

The next day was warmer.  The sun was already out when I left the hotel about 9:30.  I took a bicycle rickshaw through the heavy morning traffic to Lalbagh Fort in Old Dhaka.  It was an enjoyable ride, past the Kaaba-like modern downtown mosque, the High Court, and the red brick Curzon Hall at the University of Dhaka.  I arrived at the fort about 10 and spent an hour and a half there.  Construction began in 1677 under a son of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but the fort was never completed.  Inside are only three late 17th century structures, recently renovated:  a three domed mosque, an audience hall, and a mausoleum.  The lawns were refreshingly free of garbage, or nearly so, and flowers were planted all over.  I wandered around in the hazy sunlight.  In one corner of the fort, near a big gate, four guys were playing carrom. I watched for a while and they invited me to try a few shots, at which I failed miserably.  Then one guy left and they invited me to take his place.  I started off the game and my first two shots were excellent, scoring several markers.  They were as surprised as I was.  I soon reverted to my previous form, though.

Leaving the fort, I spent the day wandering through Old Dhaka.  I walked to a old mosque, which was closed, and then took a bicycle rickshaw through the crowded streets, getting off near some narrow lanes that led to the remnants of 17th century buildings, a palace and a caravansarai.  People were very friendly.  One guy invited me to sit down in his shop and another guy brought me a bottled fruit drink.

I took another bicycle rickshaw to a 1781 Armenian church, though part of it may be a century older, with dozens of interesting old gravestones in the courtyard.  Many of the dead had been born in Persia.  The Armenians came to Dhaka in the 17th century.  The caretaker's son, a Hindu, told me there are only nine Armenian families left in Dhaka, and they only have church services twice a year, at Easter and Christmas, when an Armenian priest comes from Australia. 

From the church I walked to a small mosque covered with English and Japanese tiles, including some depicting Mt. Fuji, and then, about 2:30, made my way to Nana Biryani, a place with no English sign, but the best chicken biryani I have ever eaten, with a sauce of caramelized onions and moist, hot rice.  The waiters were all very friendly, including an old man who kept nodding approvingly at me.  They brought me a fork and spoon, but I ate with my right hand, like everybody else.

After lunch I walked along a street specializing in motorcycles and bicycles.  As in India, shops selling the same things are clustered all together.  Walking north I made my way out of Old Dhaka and to the old section of the Unversity of Dhaka, full of colonial era brick buildings collectively called Curzon Hall.  From there I walked east along the very busy streets, getting to my hotel before 6.  After my late lunch, I wasn't very hungry that evening, and settled for a couple of boiled eggs from a street vendor.  He sprinkled some sort of delicious stuff on them.  I also had a parata from another vendor.

The next morning was a Friday and the streets were relatively quiet.  A newspaper reported the high temperature the day before has been only 20 degrees, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit.  Under the hazy sunshine I walked to the nearby bus stop and about 10 took a bus east to Sonargaon, crossing a river on the way, about a 45 minute trip. Sonargaon was an eastern capital of Bengal at various times until the Moghuls in 1608 made Dhaka their capital of Bengal.  (In 1717 the capital was moved to Murshidabad, now in India's portion of Bengal, and, later, by the British, to Calcutta.)

There is not much left of the former capital, now a semi-rural area.  From the bus stop I took a bicycle rickshaw about a mile to Sadarbari, a rajbari (that is, a mansion built by a zamindar during colonial times) that incorporated part of a 500 year old mansion.  Unfortunately, it is now under reconstruction and closed to the public.  The nearby museum was mildly interesting.

I walked about a half mile further north to Painam Nagar, a street lined with mansions, about 50 of them, built by Hindu merchants between 1895 and 1905.  Most of the owners fled at Partition in 1947, with the rest leaving in the anti-Hindu riots in 1964, leaving the mansions in care of tenants who let them deteriorate.  They are now mostly abandoned, with a few squatters, and make quite a fascinating sight:  a long row of derelict mansions, some perhaps four stories high, along both sides of a single street.  Being a Friday, there were quite a few Bangladeshi tourists around.  I saw only two other foreigners.

From Painam Nagar I walked about a mile west on rural lanes to a small, single domed, brick mosque dating from 1519.  It was locked up, but I could see into the small interior.  Outside, there are some interesting designs on the brickwork.  To and from the mosque, I passed quite a few men and boys in white robes and skullcaps, just having left other mosques after mid-afternoon Friday prayers.  People were friendly and curious and I enjoyed the rural walk.

I made my way back to the bus stop, first walking and then hopping on a bicycle rickshaw, and left by bus for Dhaka about 3.  Back in Dhaka, I walked to Haji Biryani, a small restaurant in Old Dhaka famous for its single dish, mutton biryani.  It was good, but greasy, and not nearly as good as the chicken biryani I had eaten at Nana Biryani the day before.

After my early dinner, after 4, I walked again to Curzon Hall at the University of Dhaka and then further north to the High Court building, now derelict but still in use, originally built a century ago to be the residence of the Governor of East Bengal.  In the early 20th century the British under Lord Curzon decided to divide Bengal into two provinces, and then several years later rescinded the move after protests by Indians.

Near the High Court I met a university student who told me he was majoring in English literature and was particularly interested in Robert Frost and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He walked me back to my hotel.  On the way, we passed a small Communist Party rally on a street closed to traffic.  The middle aged speaker, with maybe a couple of hundred people listening, seemed to be making quite a forceful speech.

The next morning, a Saturday, part of the Bangladeshi weekend, the streets were again less crowded, though not uncrowded.  I walked to the Liberation War Museum in a small colonial era building, and ended up spending more than two hours inside.  It contained photos and maps and newspaper and magazine stories and was very interesting, chronicling the history of East Bengal but with a major emphasis on the struggle against domination by West Pakistan after Partition.  One interesting item on display was a copy of a memo from Kissinger to Nixon discussing the 1971 revolt against Pakistani domination.  Some of the photographs on display were very gruesome.  The Pakistanis reacted brutally, killing, torturing, and raping.  Ten million fled to India and perhaps a million died.

From the museum I walked to nearby Surhawardi Park, formerly the Ramna Racecourse, where Bangladesh's founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, made a fiery speech in March 1971, after his East Pakistan based party won a majority in the 1970 Pakistan elections, which the military government then disregarded.  Sheikh Mujib was arrested and in late March the Pakistanis began their reign of terror, sparking the war for independence, which was achieved in December 1971 after Pakistan attacked India in the west and India intervened, defeating the Pakistanis in about two weeks.  The surrender was signed at the Ramna Racecourse. 

There is now a derelict large memorial where the racecourse once was.  A large fetid pool fronts a cement wall with a frieze depicting Sheikh Mujib (who later, in 1975, was assassinated with most of his family) and other figures.  There is trash all around on the dusty, dead grass lawns.  A little north is a brick wall, with garbage all along it, and in front of it a cement stand with an eternal flame.  The plaque doesn't explain who or what the flame memorializes, but says it was dedicated in 1997 by Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Mujib's daughter, who with one sister survived the slaughter of her family because they were out of the country, and is now head of the Awami League, the party established by her father, and prime minister, as she was in 1997.  Also at the dedication were Arafat, Mandela and the president of Turkey.

I next walked to the nearby National Museum in a huge, fairly modern building.  I didn't get there until about 3, and it closed before 5, so I only had time for one of its two big floors.  It is a very good museum, with some excellent Hindu sculpture, mostly from the 10th and 11th centuries, found south of Dhaka.  I wonder where the stone came from.  Bengal was just about the last stronghold of Buddhism in India, until about the 12th century.  A Hindu dynasty then ruled for about a century before the Muslims arrived and took over about 1200.

Outside the museum a loud, but sparsely attended demonstration was in progress.  Bangladeshis seem to favor fiery, bombastic speakers. In front of the speaker, a chubby, middle aged guy with long hair, a beret, and a shirt resembling the national flag was painting a long sheet of white paper with black and, mostly, red paint.  I listened for a while and then walked back to the park, now filled with people at the end of the afternoon. Men and boys were playing cricket and soccer, but most people were just sitting or walking around.  There was a tremendous amount of trash on the ground and metal roofing material was strung along one side of the memorial pond.  I ate dinner on the way back to my hotel.