A day in Dhaka
Farhan and I had no meetings today so had a chance to look at Dhaka.
We took a short walk from the Hotel to catch a CNG Rickshaw to see the Parliament buildings.
Here's Farhan standing outside the fence as we weren't allowed any closer.
From there we walked for a while and went into a small shopping centre where we stumbled upon the Diana Shopping centre complete with cheesy picture of Princess Di. That made us chuckle.
After that we stepped out and found another CNG Rickshaw to take us to the National Museum of Dhaka. We arrived at 1pm and discovered it didn't open until 3pm so had a bit to eat in a basement cafe which was sort of Chinese.
Farhan decided it was time to pray and left me to eat while he went to find a local mosque. It felt pretty strange being alone in a Chinese cafe in Bangladesh in the middle of Dhaka. The food was good and cheap.
When Farhan returned we decided that rather than wait for the museum to open we would take a cab to another place - Ashan Manzil Museum - the home of the last Nawab (ruler) of Dhaka. This was an awesome journey (just like being inside a video game) which I videoed bits of (will post later). The place was a bit disappointing but the sights we saw were amazing. Here's a few shots from the streets around this place.
The palace is by the river running through Dhaka, and here is a huge wholesale fruit market and lots of hustle and bustling people buying and selling all sorts of stuff.
There will be some amazing video to follow as soon as I have had a chance to upload it.
We both decided that Dhaka was much better than we expected it to be, and not a bad place to have to come back to. So roll on next year...
2 comments:
Looks amazing .. you lucky git :)
It exceeded my expectations. Both Farhan and I were expecting some sort of shanty town with tin shacks, but what we got was a modern 3rd world city full of friendly people. Its rough in places for sure, but relatively clean compared to most places I've been in the region. Far less rubbish strewn around than in many of the cities I've seen in India or compared to Karachi. My journey to the airport was sad. The driver told me when I asked if he knew anyone affected by the disaster that his family who come from the region where the cyclone hit had lost everything - all their property was ruined or raised to the ground so he was working 2 jobs to get more money for them.
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