Hotel de Crystal Crown Dhaka City

... services for the disabled people who need to learn new skills as they're not able to continue their former jobs. They also have degree courses running for Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Speech therapy and nursing training on sight. It's an amazing place and I was really happy to be back!

We were arriving amidst the Eid celebrations, one of the biggest festivals in the Muslim calendar. On Eid day the fasting was over and everyone was celebrating, wearing ...

... at få læst godnathistorie og putte sig ind i sin kærestes arme. Ja, personal notes det blir. Sådan – vi er i gang – ekspressen ruller og lorten er lagt. Jeg er klar. Mit hår er vådt men pyt – the aircondition æder det jo alligevel.

Jeg er ankommet til Dhaka – den travle og beskidte by, men samtidig også den skønne town jeg igennem det sidste år er kommet til at holde så forfærdelig meget af. Det er skønt at være tilbage ...

... with 1.5 hours notice that we needed to give an important presentation to some 20 high-powered representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank, and the FAO.  Fortunately, Dan had a talk prepared for such a contingency, and with a little on-the-fly modification (and some sharp question-fielding by both Melanie and Dan), it went off very well. 

Anyway, that's a snapshot of our snapshot in Bangladesh.  The people we've come into contact with have ...

... was united with current-day Pakistan. She was called East Pakistan back then. Mrs. Rahman commented that West Pakistan's attempt to replace Bengali with Urdu and their concentrating all of their investments in the West were the main reasons behind the partition. In Gulshan there is a road named Kemal Ataturk. I had no idea that we had such ties with Bangladesh. Dr. Rahman's guess was that the Turkish government fronted the cash for the ...

... They even had Halloween decorations, I had a swimming competition with a little American by named Daniel who thought David was my father... and also thought I was David's mother. Rather odd, but we had a great time hanging out with kids at the pool while the "of age" folks took part in their civic duties of absentee voting. After a long discussion on whether or not the US even counts absentee ballots we left rather depressed, so if anyone has any information that will ...

... be interesting. Seeing two westerners walk into the modest little house serving as Immigration Control was exciting for the guys at the desks who see few foreigners crossing at this border post. They were intrigued with the colorful stamps and assorted visas covering the pages of the rarely seen US passports. I was thumbing through the pages of an over-sized, hand entered ledger book documenting all foreign visitors while waiting and ...

... Previously I had been concerned about sanitation, water born diseases, the Muslim country issue, and how and if a western non-profit could really help the people of southern Bangladesh who are so regularly, annually and cyclically, ravaged by monsoons and cyclones. Lenka's departure from the project furthered my doubts making me wonder "why on earth am I in Bangladesh?". However, we had traveled half way around the globe, spent a ton of money doing so, and wanted to ...

... to the crazy driving here and the numerous accidents I've witnessed but hopefully nothing will happen.... We'll be spending two days at my grandfather's farm with my grandpa's brother and then on the 4th if everything goes well and God Willing, he will take us to Burimari which is the last town on the border with India and from then on, we will be going to Siliguri and then to Darjeeling for a few days. I'm really quite excited and scared and hope that nothing will go ...

... wallah who plies his trade out the front of our hotel. Our negotiations for hiring the guy are observed by most people in the street (who stand around us in a circle) and the hotel security guard offers to act as witness to the amount the rickshaw wallah agrees to! The rickshaw wallah is about as skinny as he could possibly be, but has just purchased a brand new cycle rickshaw (for US$200 he proudly tells us), so he surely can't be starving. It is ...

... Waterfall After visiting relatives for the past 4 days we decided to do a little sight seeing local to us, everyone recommended Madhabkunda. The water fall is in Lawacherra Rain Forest which is one of the important and well-reserved forests in Bangladesh. Once your there you'll have to be and entrance fee which is very minimal and includes car parking. The water fall is in pretty deep so it's a bit of a trek up and down ...