February 13-18, 2015: Tangail, Mymensingh, Birisiri, and Dhaka

In Dinajpur on the morning of the 13th, I walked to the train station to try once again to get a seat on the train to Dhaka.  I had met a guy the evening before and again this morning who told me he could get me a seat.  I was a little dubious, but eventually decided to give him 500 taka and see if he could get me a seat.  I went back to my hotel, checked out, and returned to the station about 11.  I waited and, eventually, not too long before the train's delayed departure, he came back with a ticket, face value 430 taka; so he charged me less than a dollar for his services. 

The train left about 2 and I had a comfortable seat, the last seat in the last carriage at the end of the long train.  The seat was all by itself and, most unfortunately, right next to the toilet.  You don't want to be next to a toilet on Bangladeshi trains, but at least it was a seat.  The slow train headed east for about 15 miles and then turned south.  I'd been told the trains were traveling more slowly than usual because of fear of derailments caused by opponents of the government.  The scenery was lovely, full of rice paddies, my seat was comfortable, and the toilet, at the start of the trip, not terribly odorous.  Darkness descended about 6:30, just before the train stopped at Natore about 6:45.  Even though I had a ticket all the way to Dhaka and wanted to go to Tangail (maybe 50 miles northwest of Dhaka), I thought about getting off in Natore, as I had stayed there six days earlier and knew it had a decent hotel.  I figured I could get a bus or some sort of transport from there the next day to Tangail, across the Jamuna River.  I always prefer traveling during the day to see the scenery. 

I probably should have spent the night in Natore, but my 30 day visa was nearing its end, so I stayed on the train.  It slowly continued south and then made a big loop to the northeast, heading towards the Jamuna River.  The train had crowded up and the aisles were now packed.  The toilet now reeked and smokers congregated near it.  I thought about getting off at Serajganj, just before the river, but the train station seemed at the edge of or outside of town and I knew nothing about hotels there. 

The train slowly crossed the Jamuna on a long bridge between 9:30 and 10, taking 16 minutes to do so.  I could look down and see water and sandbanks.  Finally, about 11:30, the train reached Tangail.  I had trouble getting off.  The aisles were packed and the first door I tried was stuck.  I had to push my way through the crowd to get to another door.  Being in the last carriage in a very long train, the carriage was quite a way from the station platforms, so I had to jump down with my backpack onto the rocky bed of the tracks and walk in the dark and cold to the station.  A helpful fellow passenger helped me get a CNG to the hotel in town where I planned to stay.  We had to wake the manager to  let me in, and I was very glad to wash and go to bed.

I slept until almost 8 the next morning.  After breakfast, I made my way via three different vehicles to Atia Mosque, only 5 or 6 miles east of Tangail and set in lovely countryside of rice paddies, palm trees, and much other vegetation.  The small mosque was built in 1609 and most recently restored in 1830 and the early 1900's by zamindars.  The terracotta panels on it, with mostly floral representations, were interesting, though not as interesting as the ones with human and animal figures on Hindu temples.  Nearby is a ruined and abandoned small mosque next to a madrassa.  I walked to the mosque and several of the madrassa students came out or stood at the doors and windows of the madrassa to look me over.  Even some girls came out, from what seemed to be a sex segregated classroom.  They were shy but friendly.  Eventually, though, a bearded guy in a robe came out from an office and yelled at them to get back to their classrooms.

I decided to walk back to the main road and enjoyed the walk.  The countryside was green and pretty, with  rice growing everywhere.  The road was mostly deserted except for a few friendly bicyclists and an occasional auto or bicycle rickshaw.  I came across some shy, uniformed school girls walking home, perhaps for their lunch break, or maybe school is just in the morning.  On the main road I got an auto rickshaw back to town, getting back about noon.

About an hour later I left Tangail on a bus bound for Mymensingh, about 55 miles northeast.  The trip on a packed bus took almost three hours, passing, as usual, lot of rice growing, but also some sal forest.  After checking into a hotel under now cloudy skies, I walked to the banks of the Brahmaputra River on the north edge of town.  This apparently waterless, sandy riverbed was once the main course of the Brahmaputra, the mighty river that flows into Bangladesh from India to the north, but the river changed course some time ago.  The now dry riverbed seems to have retained the name, if not much of the water, of India's Brahmaputra, while the now main course of the Brahmaputra, called the Jamuna in Bangladesh, flows further west.  The riverside was fairly disgusting, with hovels, trash, and the smell of urine.  I kept walking west and eventually came to a riverside circus, with elephants.  This was February 14, Valentine's Day, and back in the city center I noticed restaurants decorated with hearts and people carrying flowers.  In India Hindu nationalists often protest and even terrorize restaurants that have Valentine's Day events.  In Mymensingh I noticed that the Hindu women I saw that evening seemed especially dressed up and made up.

The next day was cloudy all day.  About 9:30 I took a bus about half an hour west to Muktagacha to see a 300 year old rajbari in ruins.  I came back to Mymensingh and visited its 100 year old rajbari, mostly closed but occupied by offices.  A European style statue of a naked woman stands in front of the rajbari.  I've read the rajbari now houses offices of an organization that trains women teachers.  I wandered around the grounds, with a few Bangladeshis also wandering around.

About 2 I left Mymensingh on a bus heading north to Birisiri, a village just before the start of the Garo Hills that mark the border with India.  The trip was slow and dusty under cloudy skies, covering maybe 30 miles in more than three hours. Fortunately, I had a seat up front with good leg room in the very crowded bus.  The bus first crossed the long bridge over the empty Brahmaputra and then continued north over terrible roads, making lots of stops.  As usual, there was lots of rice to be seen on the way 

Arriving after 5 in the dusty, ugly center of Birisiri, I walked along a narrow lane through greener, much more pleasant surroundings to get to the YWCA hostel in the woods outside the village and checked in to a nice room.  Birisiri is a Garo village, though there are also Bengalis.  Most Garos living in the Garo Hills to the north in India.  They are hill people, about two million in total, less than ten per cent of them living in Bangladesh.  Most are now Christians, the result of 19th century missionaries.  The receptionist who checked me in was Garo.  I walked back to the dusty center on the main road, where the only restaurants are, and not very good ones at that, for a chicken and rice dinner.  An open market was strung out along the road, with fruit and vegetables, fish and chickens.  Back at the YWCA I had to listen to nearby amplified yelling, wailing, and singing till late.  I was later told it was some sort of Christian religious service.  It was a Sunday night.

Early the next morning I walked east from the YWCA, heading away from the village center.  The narrow road was raised high over the watery rice paddies it passed.  The morning was sunny and there were few houses.  I did see a church in a walled enclosure. I met both Garos and Bengalis, and some particularly friendly old Garo women.  I saw ducks here and there and passed tea shops in shacks and a barber plying his trade on a couple of boys at the side of the road.  I came back to the dusty village center for breakfast, with the benefit of the company of what appeared to be the village idiot, who latched onto me, the only foreigner around, speaking constantly some sort of incomprehensible gibberish.   

 About 10 I hired a guy with a bicycle rickshaw with a little electric motor to take me a few miles north to the border and the so-called China Clay Hills just before the border.  A little north of the village we had to cross the Someswari River by ferry, reaching the ferry over deep sand in the riverbed.  Dredges sitting on the sand at the waterside were dredging up sand and pouring it into big trucks.  I was told 300 to 350 trucks full of sand leave every day for Dhaka.  On the other side of the river a paved road headed north, though with several sandy patches, usually at streams.  I saw men fishing by throwing nets.  Many of the women were in black, both Bengali and Garo.  There was very little traffic.  Reaching the China Clay Hills, we stopped and walked among and onto the small mounds hardly rising above the flat plains.  To the north, over the border, real hills, the forested Garo Hills, were visible.  We came across about 50 people, men and women, Garos and Bengalis, working in the most basic conditions at some sort of mine d(a clay mine, I suppose) in the clay mounds.  Men were using picks and shovels to break up the earth while women moved the dirt and rock with pans carried atop their heads.  The soil was purplish in places.  We watched for a while and then it must have been lunchtime as they all stopped work and headed to a nearby village. 

We got back on the rickshaw and headed to a hill next to the river and just short of the border at a place called Ranikhong.  A church sat atop the hill and a secondary school below it.  From the hilltop were good views of the wide river below and upriver into the hills in India.   I watched two boats and several men positioning fishing nets into some sort of fish corral in the river just below the hill. From Ranikhong we traveled just a bit further north to the border post and the banks of the very clear and cold river, and then headed back to Birisiri, arriving about 2.

Back at the YWCA I sat in the sun and talked to an interesting Garo guy.  From about 4 to sunset I again walked east into the countryside.  I watched a guy plowing a rice paddy and met all sorts of friendly people, men and women, kids and adults.  One woman happily posed with her large family for a photo.  I stopped at a tea shop for some tea.  Everybody was friendly.  For a while I walked back with a little girl named Papiya and she introduced me to everyone we came across, saying, "This is Doug."  Eventually, we reached her house and I continued on my own.  The sun set over the rice paddies through palm trees.

The next morning, again sunny, I again spent maybe a couple of hours walking to the east of the village.  Fewer folks were out and about compared to the previous afternoon.  I watched an energetic woman using a big scoop to move water from one paddy to another.  I walked on some paddy banks and went up to two houses with traditional Garo entrance arches to the yard in front of the house, made, if I remember correctly, of wood and palm fronds.  One family, a mother and father and some kids, invited me in and explained it had been constructed for a wedding.  The father told me he was a fan of Billy Graham, so I guess they are Baptists.

I left Birisiri shortly before noon on a CNG headed to Mymensingh.  I had hoped to get transport to Srimangal or Sylhet in Bangladesh's northeast corner, but was told there was only an overnight bus that traveled bad roads.  The CNG was much faster (and dustier) than the bus I had taken from Mymensingh and arrived at the Brahmaputra bridge just north of Mymensingh in less than two hours.  However, there was a massive traffic jam leading up to and on the bridge.  We inched along.  Eventually, I followed the lead of other passengers and got off and walked over the long bridge.  On the other side was a chaotic jumble of buses and other transport.  I asked about buses to Dhaka and was told to go to another bus stand, catering to a single bus company.  First, I headed to the train station to see about trains, but was told there were no tickets available. 

I took a bicycle rickshaw to the bus stand and was able to get a seat on a comfortable bus that left for Dhaka shortly after 3.  The 75 mile trip south to Dhaka was dusty, with much roadwork along the route, through unattractive scenery.  I saw a lot of aggressive driving.  In the towns just north of Dhaka, especially Gazipur, we passed garment factory after garment factory, some looking somewhat modern and some looking drab and unsafe.  It was dark by the time we reached Dhaka.  Passing through very slow traffic we went through the modern center north of the old center, full of bight lights. The bus ended its journey about 7 and after some trouble I found a rickshaw to take me to the hotel where I had stayed before.  It took 40 minutes through heavy traffic.  I was happy to get there, have a good chicken dinner, and then wash my filthy shirt, trousers, windbreaker and day pack before bedtime.

I spent the next day, a warm, sunny day, in Dhaka.  This was the last day of the 30 days allowed by my visa, and I had earlier planned to head east and cross the border to Agartala in India.  There is a Bangladesh consulate in Agartala and I planned to get a new visa there.  However, I had heard or read that the consulate is sometimes difficult about issuing visas, and I thought it might be particularly difficult with the political disturbances and bus bombings.  There were still several places I wanted to go to in Bangladesh, so I decided to take the risk of overstaying my visa. 

I didn't do much that day.  I spent the morning deciding to overstay my visa and most of the afternoon relaxing in the hotel lobby.  A Bangladesh-Afghanistan cricket match was on television.  I did take a late afternoon walk to the nearby huge, cavernous, and not particularly appealing mosque built in 1961.  I spent some time just watching the chaotic street traffic, with cars, buses, rickshaws and other vehicles all jumbled together.  Late at night there was thunder and a heavy rain.

February 8-12, 2015: Bogra, Rangpur, and Dinajpur

On the morning of the 8th I was bound for Bogra, 40 miles northeast of Natore, but I couldn't find a bus due to the continuing political disturbances and bus bombings.  I was able to get a ride in the back of a covered pickup to Singra, perhaps a third of the way to Bogra, and then a van from there to Bogra, arriving about 11:30.  The morning was sunny and we passed lots of rice paddies.  Tambir, a young guy on the van who worked for a cell phone company, guided me to a hotel better and cheaper than the one I was planning to try, showed me a good place for lunch, and then went off to work. 

After lunch I took a CNG about 8 miles north to Mahasthan, site of the ruins of a fort dating back to the 3rd century B.C., though abandoned perhaps 500 years ago.  Not much remains, but it is a peaceful rural area.  The former walls are now mostly hillocks, with some brickwork showing.  I walked along the top of the eastern wall of the rectangular citadel, something like a mile by 3/4 of a mile.  Rice and other crops were planted along the walls, with people pulling out densely growing clumps of new grown rice to plant them more spaced out nearby.  I made my way to the northwest section of the walls, the highest part, but still more hillock than wall.  I came across a friendly but seemingly somewhat wary shepherd and his flock.

I came back to Bogra about 5 and watched a very crowded train slowly leave the train station.  Many of the trains are packed due to the paucity of buses.  All sorts of vendors had their merchandise spread out along the tracks, a sort of open market.  I met Tambir for dinner and also met again Olivier, a Belgian who had been on the Sundarbans trip.

The three of us had breakfast again the next morning and then Olivier and I, with Tambir's help, hired a CNG for 1400 taka (about $18) to take us to the ruins of the 8th century Buddhist monastery of Somapuri Vihara at Paharpur, said to have been at one time the largest monastery south of the Himalayas.  From Bogra we headed north and then northwest to Jaipurhat, and then southwest to Paharpur on bad roads past lots and lots of growing rice and through a few villages.  At one we made a tea stop in a village and asked directions.  The two hour trip to get there was pleasant and interesting, but the site itself was somewhat disappointing.  At the center of a large quadrangle (which once had 177 cells for monks) sits a 65 foot tall brick stupa, which you can climb on.  A large team of restorers was working on it, and there are some interesting terracotta panels of people and animals embedded in it, though it seemed many were replicas.  We walked around the stupa and then along the periphery of former monk cells.  Only the foundations are left. The workers were friendly and I took photos of a bunch of them.  The museum was excellent, with black basalt Hindu sculptures and a beautiful large bronze Buddha from the 8th century.  We spent about two and a half hours at Paharpur before making the scenic trip back to Bogra.

Back in town I walked to the Mohammed Ali Palace, a rajbari (that is, a large mansion) that is furnished and has mannequins dressed both in Bengali and British fashion.  It is the former home of nawabs.  Among the rooms is a large dining room (filled with mannequins), a billiard room, a bedroom, and a music room (more mannequins).  Photographs of Kennedy, Nehru, Queen Elizabeth II, and others are on the walls, along with modern paintings and drawings of Laocoon, Apollo and Daphne, and other classical subjects.  Outside is a sort of low budget amusement park with rickety rides.  I had dinner again with Olivier and Tambir, and Tambir gave us each a big coffee cup emblazoned with the name of his company and a box of leather goods, including a wallet and a passport holder.  That was nice of him, but I really didn't want to carry them in my backpack, so I left them in the next hotel I stayed in.

After a long breakfast the next morning with Tambir and Olivier, we all went our separate ways.  About 11 I took a CNG 15 miles east to a little town called Sariakundi, and then a rickshaw to the banks of the wide Jamuna River, the river that flows through Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo and through India as the Brahmaputra.  This area is flooded during the monsoon, but now there are big sandy islands in the wide river.  When the waters are low these islands, called chars, are inhabited and cultivated.  Drying in the sun on the cement embankment lay masses of enormous chili peppers, some very dark red, some somewhat lighter red, and some orange.  Men and women were sifting through them, throwing out the bad ones.  Only a few boats were on the river.  I thought about trying to get a boat to one of the chars, but eventually just walked back towards Sariakundi, and I spent the next five hours walking on narrow roads, often damaged from the floods, through villages and past watery rice paddies. 

The people were very friendly and this turned out to be perhaps my favorite day in Bangladesh.  In one village kids had just gotten out of school.  They were very shy.  At the village edge a friendly woman was packing wet cow manure onto sticks a foot or so long, and then leaning them in a line on a fence to dry in the sun.  I watched her do it and took some photographs, which she smilingly posed for.  Others did, too:  old men, women, kids.  They were all very friendly.  Along the way I saw many stacks of rice stalks and some houses only of corrugated metal, which must be miserable in the hot season. 

I passed by an outdoor brick factory, with a tall smokestack, and went in to explore.  Stacks of bricks lay everywhere, gray ones not yet fired and red ones, stamped PAT, already fired.  The workers were all very friendly, so I walked up the bamboo ramp to the flat top of the enormous kiln with bricks being fired inside below me.  On top are holes, maybe 3 or 4 inches square, with round metal covers.  Two men were using metal hooks to pull up the metal covers and pour coal chips and dust into the openings.  I looked down some of the holes as the covers were lifted and could see a bright orange glow and feel considerable heat.  There must have been about 20 of those holes. 

On the other side of the kiln men were carrying bricks that had already been fired and had now cooled from the kiln to a stacking site.  They carried the bricks in slings on their shoulders, with ten bricks on a little wooden platform on each side.  Further away were rows of newly made soft gray bricks drying in the sun, with a big mud puddle and some sort of brick making machine, now idle.  Some of the workers showed me how the bricks are made.  I've never seen so many brick factories as I saw in Bangladesh.

I kept walking and met more friendly people.  A group of girls, mostly shy, spoke some English.  One spoke good English and told me she was 9, in grade 6, and the daughter of a school teacher.  Soon I was being followed by a big crowd of kids and adults.  One big guy asked me to stop for tea at a little wooden shack and insisted on paying as I was his guest.  After we finished and had talked a while, a boy came up and invited me to visit his secondary school.  The classrooms were of corrugated metal and dark, with few or no windows and wooden benches and tables.  He took me first to a raucous English class.  The teacher, over 65 he told me, took me to meet the headmaster.  They took me to a Form 7 class, with one girl among all the boys.  She spoke some English and held her own among all those unruly boys.  I was told her father is in the United States.  Students by now had in large part deserted their classrooms to follow me around.  I was told there are 600 students in the school.  I was led to a Form 10 classroom, the highest in the school and all boys.  The small room was dark and crowded, another corrugated metal room with only one small window and no electricity.  There was not much discipline other than yelling by the teachers.  Just before I went in I was introduced to the agriculture teacher, the only one I met in Islamic dress.  Inside, the class put on a performance for me.  First, some small kids performed acrobatics on the floor.  Then, one kid sang, though his noisy classmates seemed to pay no attention.  Next, two or three boys acted out, quite forcefully, what seemed to be a scene from a play.  Finally, a drummer played. 

I left accompanied by a sea of friendly students.  The English teacher invited me to tea at another roadside tea shack, and told me that he had been teaching for 45 years.  At the tea shop a mass of kids swarmed around me, wanting to shake my hand.  There were adults, too, all very friendly.  Finally, I broke away and continued my walk, reaching another embankment, or ghat, of the Jamuna River, with good views of the river and chars.  I watched wooden ferry boats coming and going.  By then it was 4 o'clock or later.  I got to talking to a guy who told me he was studying to be a pilot in Bangalore (in India).  He offered to take me to the CNG stand in Sariakandi on his motorcycle.  Three of us rode on the motorcycle and on the way we stopped for tea, my third of the afternoon, this time with ginger.  I left on a CNG about 5 for the 40 minute ride back to Bogra, a beautiful drive through rice paddies in the late afternoon.  The streets were packed in Bogra. 

The next morning I left Bogra for Rangpur, 65 miles north and near the northern border with India.  With the continuing transport problems, it wasn't easy.  It took more than three and a half hours and entailed an auto rickshaw, 3 CNGs, and two buses.  The auto rickshaw just took me through town to the CNGs heading north.  The three CNGs got me only about 20 miles from Bogra, to Gabindaganj.  From there I got a bus to Palabari, less than 10 miles away.  Finally, a crowded bus took me all the rest of the way to Rangpur.  Total fares all the way were a little over two dollars.  The road was busy and I saw several other buses.  Perhaps the opposition is not very strong in this northwest region.  As always, we passed lots of rice on the way.

After lunch I went to the domed Tajhat Palace, built in the 19th century.  It is in poor shape, though it does have a white marble staircase leading up to it.  Roman statues used to line the steps, but no more. The frontage of the palace is something like 260 feet.   It was built by a Hindu from Punjab who was a successful jeweler and then became a zamindar, or landowner, acquiring the title of raja.  I headed next to Carmichael College in a spacious area at the edge of town.  Established in 1916, it has some deteriorating Indo-Saracen buildings.  I saw a plaque thanking zamindars for donating the land.  The grounds, despite the trees and grass, were not particularly inviting.  Much of the grass was dead and trash was everywhere.  An orange sun was setting as I took a rickshaw back to the city center.

The next morning shortly before 10 I left on a bus heading 25 miles west to Saidpur, a slow, packed bus making lots of stops through a countryside of rice and other crops.  From there another 25 miles southwest by bus took me to Dinajpur in the northwest corner of Bangladesh.  I arrived about 12:30, found a hotel, and then hopped on a bus heading north and for the most part retracing the last part of the route I had just taken.  Kantanagar, where I was heading, is only 10 miles away from Dinjpur, but the bus was very slow, and packed with people.  Those ten miles took about an hour, and I didn't get off till about 2. 

From the road I had about a 15 minute walk to the Kantanagar Temple.  I crossed the river via a long new bridge, with crops growing on the exposed silt in the riverbed below.  There was road work beyond the just completed bridge and villages on the route.  Just before reaching the temple I stopped to watch women standing in water planting rice. 

The brick and terracotta temple, in a courtyard surrounded by a wall with offices and pilgrim quarters inside, was built in 1752 by a maharaja from Dinajpur.  It is covered with superb surface decoration with lots of figures.  I spent two hours there and very much enjoyed it.  There were few others there, all local people.  Some seemed to enjoy watching me looking closely at the panels. The sun had been out when I arrived but the sky was cloudy when I left.  The women ankle-deep or deeper in water were almost finished with their rice planting for the day.  The sun came out as I walked back with lots of friendly people on the way. 

The bus ride back to Dinajpur was slow.  Back in town, I walked to the century old Dinajpur Rajbari, mostly in ruins except for two temples.  I've read that Dinajpur is 38% Hindu.  One of the temples, brightly painted, had a few folks in the courtyard, including a very curious little kid and his friendly mother.  I took an auto rickshaw to the train station to see about a ticket for the next day.  With  few buses running, I had had difficulty getting all the way to Dinajpur, in Bangladesh's far northwest corner.  Now I had to figure out how to get back to the center of the country.  At the station, however, I was told there were no tickets for reserved seats on the next day's train to Dhaka.  With few buses running, lots of people wanted to take the train.   

February 5-7, 2015: Rajshahi, Puthia, Gaur, and Natore

In Rajshahi on the 5th, I wanted to visit the little town of Puthia, about 15 miles to the east, but with the political disturbances continuing, it took some trouble to find a bus.  None were leaving from the bus station, but I was advised to take a rickshaw to a traffic circle, and there I did find a bus that would pass through Kushtia.  It was battered and had a big crack in its windshield, so perhaps the owners figured it would be no great loss if it were bombed. 

I arrived in Puthia, full of dilapidated palaces and temples, a little after 11 and spent the day there.  From the spot on the highway where the bus dropped me off I walked perhaps a third of a mile south on a narrow road filled with carts and rickshaws until I reached the tall Shiva temple, built in 1823, with a pond and a smaller temple beside it.  Some of the stone carvings on it were damaged by the Pakistanis in the 1971 war.  An older man came up to me and we started talking.  He offered to serve as my guide.  I didn't really think I needed a guide, but he was a nice guy, so I agreed.  We walked to the nearby Puthia Palace, with a rubbish covered lawn in front.  The palace, built by a woman in 1895 in honor of her mother-in-law, is locked up and in very bad shape.  It must once have been grand, with columns and colored windows.  It now is said to be filled with bats. 

In a courtyard to the back of the palace is a wonderful temple, the Govinda Temple, built between 1823 and 1895.  (My guide told me about 25% of the inhabitants of Puthia are Hindu.)  The temple is a large square building, two or three stories high, covered with red terracotta tiles filled with intricate carvings, mostly of Krishna and Radha.  A priest was sitting on the ledge in front and there were ruins behind the temple.  I enjoyed looking over all the detail.  Beyond is a large pond, another, smaller palace, now government offices, and another, smaller temple, in the Bengali hut style, also covered with terracotta tiles with figures.  A little further stood the ruins of an earlier palace among vegetation and betel nut trees and yet another small temple.  We continued walking, passing another large pond and reaching three more temples, two covered with terracotta panels.  They, too, were filled with figures and I enjoyed examining the detail.

By then my guide was hinting that it was past his lunchtime, so I gave him 200 taka, for which he seemed inordinately thankful, and continued on my own.  I walked back to the Shiva Temple and noticed nearby, in some small lanes, a Hindu wedding party, with the bride and groom getting ready to leave in a van.  Music was playing and the people were friendly.  I walked again to the Puthia Palace, with a small gaggle of aggressive geese pursuing me on the lawn, and the Govinda Temple.  A group of 14 Japanese tourists showed up.  I walked again to the ruins and temples behind the palace and was followed by two shy, but ultimately very friendly, girls.  They posed for photos. 

I walked back to the highway, getting there about 4:30.  Finding a bus was difficult, but a friendly guy in an auto rickshaw offered to take me halfway back to Rajshahi.  I shared it with two friendly Hindu women and three very perplexed little kids.  They let me take some photos of them.  I was able to get a second auto rickshaw back to the train station in Rajshahi, getting there about 6.  The auto rickshaw trips back were very pleasant, with friendly fellow passengers and lovely scenery, very green, with rice, wheat, mango trees and ponds to be seen under a setting sun.

The next morning I wanted to go to the site of the former Bengal capital of Gaur, with ruins dating to the 15th and 16th centuries.  I had visited Gaur in April 2013, but could only visit those ruins on the Indian side of the border.  The ruins on the Bangladeshi side are about 50 miles northwest of Rajshahi, but getting there wasn't easy.  About 8:30 on a cold, overcast morning I left in what Bangladeshis call a CNG (an auto rickshaw powered by compressed natural gas).  Traveling in that open vehicle was very cold that morning.  The men in it with me wore thick coats and scarfs.  The road passed rice paddies, rice stacks, and in places cow manure wrapped onto sticks, like some sort of long, awful kebab, to dry in the sun. This CNG took me only as far as the town of Chapai Nawabganj, 30 miles from Rajshahi.  From there I had to hire another CNG to take me to Gaur.  About 10 a weak sun broke through.  Passing lots of mango trees on the way, we came across a long line of parked trucks as we neared the border. 

About 11 I finally arrived at Sona Masjid, a black basalt mosque built between 1493 and 1526, with some interesting designs in relief on the stone.  It was deserted.  From there I walked to the ruins of a palace, another mosque, and a mausoleum, and then along the dusty main road towards the Indian border.   The road, in bad shape, was lined with what seemed to be gravel factories, so it was not a pleasant stroll.  Fortunately, a guy on a motorcycle gave me a lift to the ruins of the 15th century Darasbari Mosque, set in a quiet grassy area filled with mango trees.  He then took me to the nearby ruins of a madrassa and finally almost to the border, from where I could walk to the 1490 Khania Dighi Mosque.  A group of men and boys were just leaving prayers at another mosque, and several of the boys, some in robes and skullcaps, led me through village streets and a mango grove to the Khania Dighi Mosque, near a big tank and set among mango trees.  This single domed mosque is in excellent condition and is covered with terracotta floral designs.  The big dome is made of tiny bricks.  A couple of old men were at the mosque and the boys who had led me to it followed me all around, inside and out as I looked around.  They were very friendly and polite, happy to pose for photos. 

The boys walked me back to their village near the main road, where I hired a CNG to take me back to Chapai Nawabganj.  It was mid-afternoon, but the sun was mostly hidden and the ride was cold.  I got back to Rajshahi about 5 and, having had no lunch, headed to that friendly restaurant for an early dinner of chicken biryani.  I hadn't seen much of Rajshahi yet, so I walked to the banks of the river (the Ganges, called the Padma in Bangladesh) just before nightfall.  Lots of  people were out and about.  I could see fields across the wide river.  I've read the border with India is not the river, but a little more than a mile beyond the river.  Upriver loomed a huge sandbank. 

The next day was warmer, and it was sunny when I took a CNG to near the riverside.  I walked along the Padma on the riverbank, much less crowded than the evening before.  There wasn't much to see that I hadn't seen the evening before, other than the Baro Kuthi, a former indigo warehouse.  Indigo production in this area was very profitable in the 19th century, though only the landlords prospered while the workers suffered, leading to the Indigo Revolt in 1859-61.  From the river I walked through a very congested, but interesting street market, to Rajshahi Government College, dating from 1873 when several maharajas donated money for its establishment.  It contains several beautiful colonial buildings and lovely gardens filled with flowers, mostly dahlias, I think.  Lots of students were around and I noticed many were checking scores posted on an outdoor bulletin board.  Most of the women were veiled.  I wandered around for a while and then headed to the museum, which was closed.  On the way a beautiful young woman said hello, quite a surprising thing, but she said it with a perfect American accent and told me she was from the Bronx and visiting relatives. 

I left Rajshahi on a 12:30 bus heading to Bogra that passed through Puthia and dropped me off in Natore, 25 miles east of Rajshahi.  A French guy I met at the hotel and I headed to Natore Rajbari, a mid-18th century mansion, or actually several mansions, in a park-like setting.  We spent the afternoon there, a pleasant place with a few Bangladeshi tourists also on the grounds.  Many of the buildings are in ruins, and even those that are not are nonetheless in dilapidated condition.  The architecture is very European, as is the statuary, including a surprising number of bare naked ladies.  There are several ponds and Hindu temples, and lots of trees and greenery.  People were very friendly.  It seems that during colonial times in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, a large proportion of the landlords were Hindu, with the Muslims largely poor, though there were also wealthy Muslim landlords and poor Hindus.  I've read that Hindus comprised something like 28% of East Bengal at the 1941 census, before partition, but that at the time of the 1971 war they were perhaps half that, and less than 10% now. 

February 1-4, 2015: Khulna, Bagerhat, Jessore, and Kushtia

The opposition political party, the BNP, had called a general strike starting February 1.  I spent the morning wandering around Khulna.  A few shops were shut, but most weren't.  I walked to the river and along a narrow street full of craftsmen along it.  People were friendly and eventually I reached the train station.  Oddly, near the tracks right in the station a mass of peppercorns, or perhaps some variety of lentils, was drying in the sun, and two women were walking through them using their feet to turn them.  They were highly amused at my photographing them.  Nearby was a large room, a sort of warehouse, full of onions.  I looked inside and was invited in by the friendly workers.  Giant scales were at hand to weigh the onions.  Walking back to my hotel I saw a pro-government march.

I wanted to go to Bagerhat, 15 miles east, for the day, but because of feared violence no buses were running from downtown Khulna.  Instead, I had to take a crowded ferry across the river and from there a small bus for the scenic trip to Bagerhat, with rice paddies, coconut palms, banana trees, and even some pigs along the way.  The pigs were a bit of a surprise in Muslim Bangladesh.  Because of all the delays I didn't get there until 3, getting off at the 15th century Shait Gumbad Mosque.  This stout brick mosque has 77 domes (though the name means "60 Dome Mosque') and was being repaired, with much scaffolding.  In fact, the scaffolding and repair methods seemed out of the 15th century, too.  I walked to two much smaller single domed mosques nearby through pretty countryside and villages and then back and to yet another mosque just across the road from the Shait Gumbad.  I then took one of those electric rickshaws another mile or so east to the tomb of the Sufi mystic who founded Bagerhat and built the mosques.  It was nothing special, much modernized.  A tank is to the south, with another couple of mosques nearby, which I walked to as the sun was setting.  Finally, there was one last mosque to see, to the north of the tomb.  It, too, dates from the 15th century, with a single dome, but a large one, more than 35 feet in diameter.  By the time I got there, though, it was dark.  I walked back to the road to catch transport back to Khulna and was told there was none, because of the "general strike" and the threat of violence.  There were quite a few policemen around and one of them told me to wait and there would be a bus. One did come through just before 7 and the police put me on it.  We reached Khulna about 8 after an uneventful, but chilly, trip.

The next morning I left Khulna on a dirty and dilapidated train for Jessore, about 35 miles northwest and only about 10 miles from the Indian border.  My first class ticket cost me a little over a dollar.  There were three others in my dingy compartment, while the second class compartments (ticket only about 30 cents) were crowded.  The train passed dusty little towns and lots of very green newly planted rice in watery paddies.  Reaching Jessore about 11, after an hour and a half trip, I checked into a hotel.  There wasn't much to see in town, other than a big red and white brick colonial era courthouse with a little park in front, full of people.  On one side of the courthouse was a sort of car and scooter junk yard, with some interesting old vehicles in great disrepair.  Nearby was an interesting bazaar, with fruit and vegetables, and there were also chickens, ducks, fish, and goats.  I walked along narrow streets with lots of little shops, only some of which were closed.  Quite a few women were veiled, and I saw hennaed beards and hair (on the men, not the women!)  The day was sunny but it was cool in the shade. 

The next morning about 9 I left Jessore by train, heading north.  A captain of a dredging vessel sat across from me and was interesting to talk to as we traveled through pretty countryside with lots of bright green new rice growing, along with corn, vegetables and bananas.  I also saw lots of palm trees, some with pots to catch the sap.  The train skirted the Indian border before reaching Poradaha before noon.  From Poradaha it took half hour trip to get to Kushtia in one of those golf cart-like electric richshaws, passing warehouses with lots of rice drying in the sun.  In Kushtia the friendly dredge captain led me to the hotel I wanted to stay in.  After lunch I walked around a bit in that friendly town, with lots of waves from people, on a much warmer day than the past few, and then took a rickshaw to the Shrine of Lalon Shah.  He was a 19th century mystic and minstrel, acclaimed for his religious tolerance.  The shrine itself wasn't much, but the atmosphere of the place was pleasant.  In a pavilion behind the tomb musicians played, with drums, harmoniums (harmonia?), and ektaras, which are one-stringed instruments.  I took a rickshaw back to the train station in time to see the departure of the late afternoon train to Rajshahi, where I was heading the next day.  It left late and crowded at 5:45, just before dark.

The next day was warm, too, a welcome change from the chilly days in the Sundarbans and after, and in fact from my arrival in Dhaka two weeks earlier.  About 9:30 I took a rickshaw to the now dry and sandy riverbed at the northern edge of town and walked across that almost desert-like expanse to the other bank, maybe half a mile away.  Lots of other people were doing the same.  A big dredge sat in what seemed a pond in the sand.  Near the far end of the sandy riverbed a temporary bamboo bridge crossed over a trickle of water, which easily could have been passed on foot without the bridge.  On the other side I hired an electric rickshaw to take me the five or so miles to Kuthibari, the mid-19th century mansion of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal's most famous poet.  The trip there was very interesting, past villages and lots of newly planted rice.  Some of the houses were entirely of metal, and must be almost intolerable in the hot season.  I saw lots of dung being dried for fuel.  The road was paved, but very potholed, and it took 45 minutes to reach Kuthibari.  At times we drove along the wide Padma River (the Ganges, but called the Padma in Bangladesh).  It joins the Brahmaputra (called the Jamuna in Bangladesh) about 40 miles downriver, to the east. 

Kuthibari, two or three stories high and set in gardens, is now a museum.  It is a pleasant place, and must have seemed very grand in the 19th century.  Inside is some furniture and many great photographs.  On the walls are some of Tagore's poems, in English.  The Tagores were landlords with several mansions, including one in Calcutta and one Shanti Niketan, both in India.  I walked around a bit outside.  The gardens were full of flowers, with rice and rapeseed growing beyond. 

After an hour and a half there, I came back to town, had lunch, and searched unsuccessfully for a bus to Rajshahi, to the northwest and on the Ganges, with India on the other side.  So I had to take the train.  It left after 5:30, only slightly less late than the day before.  The train was crowded, but I got a seat.  The ticket was 125 taka, only about a dollar and a half, for what turned out to be almost a four hour journey.  The train was very slow.  Leaving at dusk we reached Poradaha 15 or 20 minutes later, and then spent 20 minutes there.  By the time we left Poradaha the sky was dark, with an orange moon eventually rising, one day past full.  About 7 the train crossed the wide Padma River over a long bridge, formerly called the Hardinge Bridge, after a British viceroy, and now named after Lalon Shah.  The bridge crossing took three or four minutes, and it was frustrating not to be able to see anything in the dark.  The train trip was slow, dirty, and unpleasant, though a friendly family of five sat with me.  Through the train's aisles came a never ceasing stream of vendors and beggars.  The train finally reached Rajshahi's big train station about 9:15.  I checked into a hotel and found a very friendly place for dinner.  I didn't get to bed until midnight.

January 28-31, 2015: The Rocket and the Sundarbans

[Note:  Internet cafes were scarce for the rest of my 2014-2015 trip, and I had no laptop with me, so I had to give up keeping this journal online.  However, I did make notes, almost daily, and have used those to reconstruct the trip more than a year later.]

On the morning of the 28th I arrived at the banks of the river in Barisal about 5:30 and watched the old paddle-wheeler known as the Rocket arrive from Dhaka about twenty minutes later.  I bought a deck ticket for only 80 taka (about a dollar), boarded, and the Rocket left about 6:30, with few passengers.  There are sleeping berths and a dining room, but those are for first class passengers.  I was able, however, to wander into the first class section and look around.  The paddle wheel on the Rockets (there are only a few of these old ships left, built in the 1920's and '30's) is on the side, and I stood on the platform above the big wheel as the Rocket headed down the wide, mist covered river.  Soon the captain, in the pilot house on top of the ship, invited me up on the narrow walkway running along the top of the ship from the pilot house to the bow.  He was a friendly man, 55 years old he told, wearing a dhoti and skullcap and sporting a white beard.  Later he told me that his son had drowned, though I now don't remember the circumstances.  As the sun rose over the misty river the Rocket headed south and then west, passing under a long bridge just south of Barisal.  There was little wind, but it was chilly up there in the early morning on the wide river, somewhere between a mile and a half mile wide, I would guess.  A few small boats were also on the river and there were birds chirping in the riverside trees, the trees sometimes enshrouded in mist.  The Rocket passed fields and villages and brickworks as the sun rose.  Eventually a few others, all Bangladeshis, came onto the walkway on top.  I seemed to be the only tourist on the ship.

About 8:30 we docked at the sizeable town of Jhalokati for half an hour.  I walked along a street leading from the dock, where fish and betel nut were on sale.  Women were washing pots and pans in the river.  Just west of the town the river turns south, but the Rocket headed into a smaller channel heading west.  This narrower channel, maybe 300-500 feet wide, was more scenic, with trees along the banks along with fields and villages.  There were palm trees and banana trees, and fields of rice and vegetables.  About 10:30 the Rocket turned south into a larger channel and made a brief stop on the east bank.  Continuing south it soon passed a junction with a big river coming from the northwest and at 11 docked  at Hularhat on the west bank.  Here I reluctantly got off.  The Rocket used to go all the way to Khulna, where I was heading, but does no longer.  It stops and turns around now at another town maybe halfway between Hularhat and Khulna and from that town it is supposed to be difficult to get to Khulna. 

From the dock I took an electric rickshaw, a little like a golf cart, through trees and past small channels to Pirojpur, only a few miles away, and from there I caught a bus northwest to Khulna, about 35 miles away.  The almost two hour journey passed through very scenic countryside, with lots of trees and lots of very green, newly planted rice paddies.  About halfway we passed through Bagerhat and by its 15th century mosque.  The bus crossed by bridge another big river just before we reached Khulna before 2.  Southern Bangladesh is a maze of rivers, as the Ganges and Brahmaputra, having joined together just to the north, spread out in a giant delta.  I checked into a hotel and then went to enquire about trips to the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove swamp and a national park.  I had expected difficulty in finding a tour, as there are few tourists in Bangladesh, but luckily I found a three day tour leaving that night, and booked a spot for 15,000 taka (about $194).  I went back to my hotel to rest and shower before boarding the boat about 9.  There were 19 of us as passengers, though some of those were still on the way on a bus from Dhaka.  I met some of the others and went to bed in my tiny cabin about 10.  My Japanese cabinmate appeared to have an extreme insect phobia and sprayed the small cabin with insect repellant before lighting a mosquito coil.  I slept restlessly.

About midnight I heard the boat start up.  The others on the bus from Dhaka must have arrived.  In the darkness we headed down the river south to Mongla at the edge of the national park.  The boat's engine stopped at 3:30 and the boat anchored just off Mongla.  I got up at 7 and at 7:30 the boat started up again, heading south into the vast mangrove forest and interconnecting waterways of the Sundarbans.  An estimated 400 Bengal tigers live in the Sundarbans, the largest concentration of tigers in the world, but because of the thick vegetation and waterways there are very difficult to spot.  In fact, there are only very rarely seen by tourists, or anyone else.  Our guide told me he had been on about 250 tours and had seen a tiger just twice, both fleeting glimpses very early in the morning. 

The boat headed south along a very wide channel and then into a smaller but still wide channel, at first passing a few ocean going ships.  We passed no villages and not much wildlife, though we did see birds, including kingfishers.  We also two crocodiles on the muddy banks at low tide, one over 15 feet long, and here and there small fishing boats, like canoes. 

Shortly after 1 pm the boat turned into a narrower channel, still heading south, though it widened as we continued.  The banks were lined with mangroves for the most part, with some other trees.  It wasn't terribly scenic, but it was pleasant cruising in the sun for hours and hours.  The folks on board were a friendly bunch, about one third Bangladeshi and two thirds foreigners.  The crew was great, very friendly and serving good meals.

About 3 and having traveled about 50 miles from Khulna, we were nearing the southern end of the Sundarbans at the Bay of Bengal.  In fact, we were near the southeast edge of the Sundarbans, which stretch into India, about two thirds in Bangladesh and one third in India.  The boat dropped anchor and we took a small boat onto the shore at a place called Kotka.  The muddy ground is covered completely at high tide during full and new moons and the leaves of the ubiquitous mangroves were all cropped underneath at the same level -- by deer.  We saw a sizeable herd of deer (the spotted chital), between 50 and 100 of them, many of them with impressive antlers.  A few wild pigs were also around.  A few of the crew cut off some of the mangrove branches and the deer quickly gathered their courage and came to eat the leaves.  We kept our distance and they ate quickly and then dispersed.  With our guides (one with a rifle) we took a walk along the muddy ground through mangroves and a few other trees, and some mud-covered bushes.  There were thousands of mangrove roots coming up through the mud.  We passed an old, abandoned salt works and reached another channel before heading back, reaching a muddy beach to the south with the Bay of Bengal stretching out onto the southern horizon.  Gnarly roots broke out from the trees along the shore.  There was a little broken pottery along the shore and a tall cell phone tower nearby.  Other than that, no sign of human habitation.  We headed back to our boat in the channel as the sun set, arriving at the boat just at sunset.  That evening, after dinner, we watched a very good documentary entitled "Swamp Tiger."  We saw no other tigers on the trip.

The next morning about 6:30 we all got on a small boat and spent an hour going down a scenic narrow channel to the east.  We spotted a two foot long monitor lizard on a branch, but not much else.  There were only a few birds.  We docked and walked to a watchtower with a few shy deer around before heading back.  We got back to the boat about 9 for breakfast as we headed north and then east into a narrow channel just wide enough for the boat to pass through, though it later widened.  Eventually, we turned south again into a wide channel.  We saw a large crocodile slide into the river at our approach and we saw some birds, including brahminy kites. 

About 11 we arrived at a place called Kochikhali and docked.  We took our small boat to a sand bank on the Bay of Bengal where we spent about an hour and a half.  A chilly wind blew from the north and there was no wildlife but small crabs.  After lunch on the big boat we left about 3 on another small boat excursion down a narrow channel to the west, spotting a few deer and the tracks of an otter.  A big bird flew from tree to tree ahead of us as we approached, avoiding us.  We disembarked and walked back to the channel in which our boat was anchored, passing through mangroves and then a grassy area, with grass cutters' huts, and seeing a few deer.  We were on our boat again by about 4:30.  We headed north into a chilly wind, with the sun setting into haze after 5.  We continued north until about 7, when we stopped for dinner.  After dinner the boat continued north for another two hours, reaching a place called Tambulbunda about 10:30, where we anchored for the night.

The next morning we once again boarded our small boat and were quietly paddled up a very scenic narrow channel for more than an hour.  Mist covered the water and shrouded the outline of trees along the banks.  Egrets and kingfishers flew by and we passed two small fishing boats with big wicker fish traps at the stern.  Mangroves and nipa palms lined the banks while other skeletal trees overhung the river.  Birds chirped and it was a very pleasant trip.  We turned around and motored back to our boat for breakfast and then set off about 8.

First we headed south along a wide channel but soon turned west into a narrow, twisting, and scenic channel for about three hours.  We saw another big crocodile on the bank.  About 11 we docked at a place called Harbaria at the mouth of a small channel.  We spent about an hour there on a wooden plank walkway above the muddy ground in a scenic forested area.  Monkeys frolicked in the trees as we left.  Our boat quickly turned north into the very wide Pasar River, perhaps a mile wide.  About 2 we reached the northern edge of the Sundarbans, where the mangroves disappeared, and about 3 we passed by the large city of Mongla, with a huge cement factory and a large port.  We passed by maybe a dozen gray naval vessels and five white coast guard vessels docked along the shore and passed by much larger ocean going cargo vessels in the river.  As we continued up river we once again passed villages and agricultural fields, absent in the Sundarbans.  We passed under the big bridge near Khulna and anchored after 6:30.  After dinner on board we were taken to the shore.  I got back to my hotel about 8:30 for a welcome hot water bucket bath after three days without bathing on the boat, which only had cold water.  The political tension in the country, including public bus bombings, had intensified during our tour and the tour company had arranged a bus to travel all night for those of our group who wanted to get to Dhaka.  All but five of us did so. 

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.