Hotel Sarina Dhaka City

... kids in the Special Needs School. There were only a few of them as everyone with family had gone off for the holiday so only the orphaned kids remained. Pete caused big excitement and they were more interested in talking to him than to me! Fair enough, there were already lots of girls around but Prodip who's about 20 was grateful of a bit of man to man conversation and someone to play football and frisbee with. It was also really good for Pete and he enjoyed spending ...

... tror jeg desværre ikke, at jeg kommer til at savne J

Min flyvetur herned gik helt fint. Selvom vi have to stop gik det hele forholdsvis hurtigt, da der ikke var så meget ventetid i lufthavnene. Men det kan bestemt ikke anbefales at have mere end et par timer i Athen – det er jo nærmest en ikke eksisterende lufthavn med en halv cafe og en spist doughnut. Dog skulle vores flyvetur ikke være helt lutter lagkage og festhumør. Vi havde også en ...

We have hit a dead end. The Burmese embassy won't even speak to us, let alone grant us special permission to enter their country overland - something that would take at least a month for even the most determined applicant - and we are concerned that going round Myanmar the long way (India, Nepal, Tibet, China) might be a dead end route and, even if it weren't, would take us an eternity. The Laotian Christmas dream is pretty much dead now. The only ...

... the Embassy folks with American music. After tonight, meeting challenging and intelligent (and fun!) people from the embassy, I am thinking about studying for the foreign service exam- Grandpa Gerry thanks for the advice about getting involved with the embassy! Who knows what will happen! I am inspired! I am still feeling a jet lagged, and a bit overwhelmed because I had a to find my way around my apartment today in the dark (the electricity went out which is does regularly ...

... gathered to watch the event but as soon as they notice me filming this scene they are no longer interested in the plight of the bus but are eager to get in front of the camera. We all follow the bus down the road watching as the driver comes up against one navigational problem after the next. This was the first of many tricky maneuvers before we could safely return to the bus. This time, he had to clear a narrow space between a tree and ...

... have been a new night market established outside the place. The earplugs were a godsend! Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh. Its a very industrial city, and suffers from smog, this was the thing which caused our delay getting here, along with the fog. We were not planning to spend any time in the city, other than to catch our connecting flight to Sylhet, where my family live. The city makes Delhi look very modern and ...

... Sylhet itself is amazingly beautiful with hills and lakes and Jess and I had a hard time not telling the driver to stop every two minutes to take a picture. Today, we went to the Savar Monument which is the big monument commemorating the more than 3 million people who died during the language movement. Ok, my grandpa was on the phone and he wants me home so I will go eat my dessert and leave but hopefully things will go well and the next entry will be once we are in India.

... experience and we end the day visiting an enormous bazaar where I buy myself a locally made salwar kameez (long top, baggy trousers and scarf suit) in an attempt to fit in a little better. Our poor man must be exhausted after cycling us around all day, but it's certainly the only way to get around in this town. On our second day of sightseeing we head out of Dhaka to a village called Mograpara. Unfortunately the trip involves another dreaded Bangladeshi ...

... on or swallow! Great fun for the adventurer in you. Day 10 - Cattle Market My dad's family has a proud heritage of bull raising and bull fighting, so I wanted to follow in the footsteps, excluding the fighting part. My uncle is an expert at raising and taming bulls. I wanted to buy a baby bull and let him raise it for me, so dad, uncle and I headed to the cattle market in the hunt for a baby bull. My uncle told me it can't be ...

... us.  We certainly less safe than we did before sitting in an autorickshaw between two towering black-smoke belching buses on the streets of Dhaka than we did before.  Mrs R is tired.  Mr R has had more headaches than Soft Mick from the excessive noise and air pollution.  And the feeling of being from Outer Space when yet annother crowd gather to stare intently at us is getting just a bit tiring.  So, it's a good job we're flying home tomorrow, innit? Despite this down ...