Hotel Royal Palace Dhaka City

... at man ikke står op på et toilet mens man tisser og man ikke behøver at sprøjte vand udover hele lokummet efter brug, bangladesherne stinker stadig af hvidløg gennem huden, og der er fortsat strømsvigt på kontoret, i lejligheden og sauna i vores bil. Derudover vokser ens fødder til elefantstørrelse hver eneste dag så man har behov for en størrelse større. Det er skønt at være tilbage, men at skulle leve med kaos og frustration over simple ting hver eneste ...

... Chopsticks have finally vanished, but so have silverware. Here everything, including rice, is eaten by hand. For dinner we had rice with a lentil sauce, a fresh water fish curry, chicken curry, home-made bread, salad and a thick paste-like desert made with carrots. It was excellent. Tea bags are used instead of the semawar and tea is usually taken with milk. There are a lot of giant mosquitoes. Sprayed Off all over my body and went to bed.

... for those of you who are familiar with the area... how is that for a small world! Reaz and I have decided through a vigorous competition that we definitely are the foosball champions in Dhaka. We have quite the winning streak going, and I think that the next 16 months in Dhaka are going to train me well I'm thinking that I will be able to enter a new international competitions in the future. We visited the "Marines House" a few minutes away, where the 6 marines of Bangladesh ...

... the edge of the dirt road making it very difficult for our big bus to pass. We end up stuck in a muddy ditch and all have to climb off the bus (this is the third time since leaving the station just half an hour earlier). Some men push, the women stand to the side, the driver is trying his best and dirt is being kicked up from beneath the spinning tires. Finally he manages to get the bus free from the huge potholes in the wet earth. A crowd ...

... morning. Just after we got through security, I was greeted by someone from the Best Western hotel, which we had booked to stay in the night before!!! They knew we were on the flight, and had come back to pick us up, even though the booking was for the night before! We soon were whisked through the crazy Dhaka traffic to our hotel for the night. I had stayed at the hotel before, what I hadn't realised was that there seems ...

... many other things and signed our independence from Pakistan...) we managed to get a very detailed tour of the airforce's tea plantation, lime gardens, jackfruit gardens and rubber plantations with requests to come back whenever we like... lol. I love connections here, really, it's hilarious. On our way back, we convinced the driver to take us into a National Park while my grandpa was sleeping and ate lunch there while trying very hard to spot monkeys (we didn't succeed ...

... previous night - how word spreads in a city of 12 million people! It's a novelty to see women in these narrow streets crowded with men going about their business. The light is blocked out by the heavy pollution and the thick tangles of wires running along either side of the street. We visit some busy market streets, mosques (one where the decorative tiles inside weirdly depict Mount Fuji in Japan), a palace , an Armenian church and the old fort. It's quite ...

... for a bit I found a little spot on the hill where I could sit and listen to the water topped by birds singing, no amount of money buys you this kind of serenity. Now if you're like me and the normal site seeing does it do for you then you can go to the top of the waterfall through the dense trees and get a birds eye views. The fun part is going through the forest, scared out of your wits of what you might bump into ...

Bangladesh is an accident waiting to happen.  And last Saturday night, the accident which could have happened at any point in our stay here happened just a few metres away from us.   An overcrowded, speeding bus collided with a young boy and a stationary autorickshaw on a major road in Dhaka.  While the bus sped on regardless, the boy's body lay motionless on the ground next to the crumpled autorickshaw.   Although we weren't directly involved, it was one accident too many ...