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From Top

1. A typical Dhaka bus

2. Trying to cross a typical Dhaka road (aka: A religious experience)

3. A Mosque in Dhaka's fantastic old town, this place is exactly the way old towns should be. Once inside you disappear back through the centuries.

4. Getting a shave and a huge audience at a roadside barbers.

5. My new aftershave...

Dhaka Photos

 Dhaka by night from the Hotel room, it was noisier than it looks actually!

The inside of Star Mosque, a rare haven of tranquility

 

Bangladesh

We know we have arrived somewhere quite different before the plane has even taxied to the airport terminal. No sooner has the plane touched down than we hear the sound of dozens of seat-belts being unclipped. As we hurtle down the runway shaking furiously as the plane decelerates, one eager chap even gets out of his seat to retrieve his luggage from the overhead bins. This is all accompanied by the sound of numerous mobile phone conversations. On any normal airline this, at the very least, would have garnered some death stares from the cabin crew and I can easily imagine a fierce matron-esque steward emasculating the guy who is already making his way towards the door. Here however, on Bangladesh’s GMG airlines, the cabin crew look on with nonchalant indifference. Later a chap called Sallahudin, with whom we became friends, said to me “Here in Bangladesh we have many rules and regulations... but nobody follows them!”

The airport shuttle bus is stormed by an assaulting army of frenzied passengers, all intent on hitting the immigration line first. Some cling desperately to the door with one hand whilst holding onto their luggage with the other, apparently quite willing to risk life and limb in order to escape the tarmac five minutes quicker. In all this madness the only thing that surprises me is the bus driver ordering these people to get off so we can continue our journey in relative sanity.

In the airport terminal we are harried by whole squadrons of mosquitoes the size of wasps. One look at these beasts has me feeling aneamic and I realise we are probably in the wettest lowland tropical country in the world and the perfect breeding ground for prizewinning bloodsuckers.

The journey to the hotel is spent choking in diesel fumes and avoiding collisions with buses that look like they have been turned into a panel beaters idea of modern art. I begin to doubt that the all round damage to these vehicles could be caused by traffic accidents, surely that just isn't possible. I then witness a string of minor collisions in quick succession and realise anything is possible. Many of the cars here have mini bull bars installed around their bumpers, it seems RTA's are an accepted norm, perhaps even encouraged?

There are some places on this planet that defy adequate explanation and Dhaka is one of them. You can drag out all the old travel cliches, stack them one on top of each other and swallow them whole and you still wouldn't get close to summing this place up, it is pure bonkers! I'm going to go away and try to get something down that does Dhaka and you some kind of justice, for the moment you will just have to make do with a few photos.

So that was Bangkok... confessions of a spoilt brat.

Gutted and angry. Gutted that all the plans and excitement about future travels in India are being put on indefinite hold. Angry at myself that I could have cocked up in such a monumental fashion. I could analyse it incessantly to try and figure out how I managed to make such a cataclysmic school boy error but in the end it wouldn’t really matter. I have made a lot of mistakes over the years and in the grand scheme of things this one seems pretty irrelevant. Now, almost two weeks later it is even slightly humourous.

The snap decision is made to go to Bangkok, not that we want to go there, only that it is cheap and gives us plenty of options for getting to other places. So I am here against my will, forced to remain in a city I have no real interest in whilst onward visas are processed and plane tickets purchased. As a result my view is totally biased, skewed to that of manic depressive perhaps, so I apologise in advance for those of you who love this place.

Bangkok. Immortalised in Alex Garlands “The Beach” and famed in equal measures for its mysterious exotica and salubrious erotica. All of the following certainly apply: noisy, polluted, stinking, hideous traffic jams and scooters on pavements. These are not necessarily negative, indeed, I would happily say all of that about Kathmandu, one of my favourite places in asia. The rabbit hole goes much deeper however. Every western bloke here seems to have a Thai girlfriend on his arm, as economic migrants move to the west romantic migrants move to the east. The sheer number of couples like this, usually massively imbalanced in terms of age and aesthetics (you can figure out for yourself which way this scale slides) has got to get you wondering, this isn’t the result of the standard holiday romances surely, this is a phenomenon of overwhelming statistics. Somebody must be writing a PhD thesis on this, incredible!

Then there are the single, older, western guys with lecherous grins that hang out in the cafes and bars waiting for the clubs to open, clubs with names like Venus, Honey or Hotmale… depending on preferences. A dramatically obvious side of this country not shown on the “Amazing Thailand” tourism adverts...

The Khao San Road is a hodge podge of pirate DVD stalls, tattoos, tacky comedy t-shirts, dreadlocks, wide boy stares, piercings, the inelegantly wasted stares on the great unwashed and bars that spill out onto the street and hoover up the detritus of last nights excesses with crap music, awful food, and hair of the dog beers as it all winds up to yet another debauched night of westerners behaving badly en masse in a foreign country.

Cheap booze, drugs, sex, beaches and surgical procedures are all up for grabs here and I feel totally and utterly out of place. This is their party and I am not on the guest list. One wrong turn and we end up here in this Hotel California of a backpackers limbo. Where’s that eject button?

Aha, passports stamped with visas and plane tickets in hand, winner, where are we off? Bangladesh. Why? Whilst searching for a silver lining to this whole spiraling mess several options rose to the surface. Bangladesh however, a place I never had any intention of visiting managed to escape the soup and take flight.

2 weeks ago I knew nothing about Bangladesh, now I know next to nothing but I am very keen to find out more. I am filled with a deep sense of adventure, it’s closely guarded secrets promise a wild and unpredictable journey far off the backpackers circuit, an explorers paradise. Indiana Jones, Robert Capa and Hunter S Thompson vie for attention in my wildly racing imagination. This unplanned excursion might well end up being the highlight of our trip, but who knows, only the next month holds the answer to that.

Buy the ticket… take the ride!

Hell of a day...

On the bus ride to Sultanbatheri

Our first morning in Sultanbatheri, we rose super early, dozy but excited about our day ahead. Whilst checking in to the ‘Issac Resort’ hotel the night before we had arranged to hire a jeep for the day to chauffeur us around the various sights our new locale had to offer. Onrayaram our driver arrived at 6.30am-ish and we squashed into the front seat beside him. He set off in typical Indian style, one hand on the horn and swerving to ‘avoid’ anything/one that got in our path…..certainly wakes you up of a morning! Our first stop was the Wayanad Wildlife Santuary, tiger spotting! After collecting our tickets and park guide we set off into the park at a slow amble scanning the undergrowth intensely for the stripy wonder. We passed a peacock, some spotted deer, several impressive termite mounds, hunners of monkeys, almost caught a glimpse of a barking deer, and a few chickens……..not a tiger to be seen.

All credit to our guide and Onrayaram, it seemed out of all the jeeps in the park we stayed the longest. They did appear to be trying quite hard to find one for us to goggle at. Onrayaram headed off the beaten track, not too far down a sandy path our guide loudly whispered to us to look to the left. The jeep slowed and we saw what we were told were fresh tiger tracks, probably from about an hour before. Bums. It was exciting nonetheless, although I couldn’t help imagining one of the guides had been out earlier walking around on stilts with paws, it seemed so ridiculous to believe one of these amazing beasts could be only a km or so away….

A little further along the track we saw another set to the right of the path, heading the other way…obviously the guide was going back to camp for a cuppa. Slightly disappointed and with a real hunger to spot the grand cat we decided to come again the following morning, hopefully an hour earlier to try our luck again. Once out of the gates Onrayaram whisked us back to our hotel for breakfast before taking us to our next destination. We went back to our room to use the loo and gather our thoughts on where to go for breakie.

Our doorbell rang. It was at this point our entire travelling plans were thrown into chaos. Rich opened the door to find our particularly camp assistant manager ringing his hands and looking very anxious. It would seem our India visas had expired by 10 days. Surely that couldn’t be. Rich had applied for the visas himself in Hong Kong and is usually so thorough. We were getting mildly annoyed with his wild accusations, he had to have made a mistake. We tried to shoo him away but he wasn’t for having it, we were to accompany him to the reception to wait for the manager to arrive. Whilst waiting at the desk, hungry, tired and grumpy we had a look at our visas. Start date 20/10/09, expiry 20/01/10. A three month window permitting us to remain in a foreign land was indeed now closed, yet we had not left. This it turns out is an offence, and not one to be taken lightly. Realising we were not going to wrap this up in time to head out for our next tourist jolly, we paid Onrayaram for a mornings work. He looked disappointed but seemed to sympathise with our situation, he collected his payment and sped off in his jeep.

The manager arrived and explained we should call the Indian consulate in our country and see if our visas could be extended. In the meantime, he was afraid, he would have to go to the police station with our passports to report the offence. The procedure upon checking into any hotel or home-stay in India requires a thorough checking of your passport/visa, this is logged by the hotel and is regularly checked by the authorities. If the manager had not confessed our situation immediately he would have been subjected to legal action. At this point we were still optimistic that the situation could be remedied…or perhaps a little arrogant in the belief that we had the right to stay, therefore there must be some solution, we are British after all. We called the Indian consulate who confirmed that indeed no, they could not and would not extend our visa. Ok, thanks, have a nice day. Then we called the British Embassy in India who reminded us that this was indeed an offence, why had this happened? They instructed us to report to the local Superintendent who would make out the necessary paperwork allowing us to leave India, rather than be detained. As we asked the manager and camp assistant manager for directions to the local cop shop, the tiny handful of hope was crushed. We were leaving India. I cried.

In retrospect the team at the hotel were amazing, even if we were most annoyed at them for our mistake. They couldn’t have helped us more, especially the camp assistant manager, I do hope all his efforts that day served as points towards his promotion. Annoying as he was, God loves a trier.

It was decided we would need a taxi, and an entourage. Out of nowhere pops Onrayaram. Seems the Indians do not miss a trick when it comes to making a buck. And fair enough, he had lost out on an afternoons work. Camp assistant manager, Rich and I jumped into Onrayarms jeep and whizzed off again at mach 10. We made a few stops and picked up a policeman to join our merry band. After a few wrong turns and redirections we made it to the district police head quarters. We were ushered into a very sombre pint sized court room. The Superintendent, we will call him SP, swaggered into the room stroking his humble ‘tache. I was still hoping there may be a chance of redemption, if we explained how much we had fallen in love with their beautiful country and how much we wanted to go on exploring it. No, actually there was no chance of this being allowed. SP wanted to make an example of us, fair enough. He explained we had two choices, one - face legal action and potentially a five year prison sentence, or two - leave India tomorrow. Bit of a no-brainer. And I burst into tears again. He asked us our names and what we do. Although he was directing all conversation at Rich, seems my floods of tears were doing nothing to erode the chauvanism that exists in India. Rich answered that he is a teacher, this has become our standard answer as no one seems to get the whole Outward Bound thing, and as we are asked these questions daily, it is just easier. SP snorted, ‘Well as a teacher you should not be ignorant of a countries rules…..and your wife, even as a designer she should have been aware!!’ We swallowed our pride and accepted our reprimand. A little more dressing down followed, and then we were told what was to happen. We would be granted extension of stay for 15 days, including the 10 days we had overstayed. Paperwork would be drawn up for us to present at Immigration, and we would leave the country by tomorrow AM. There would only be leniency if there were no available flights. As we sit dazed and confused, and still hungry as it is now around 2.30pm and we have not yet had our breakfast, the various people slowly set about preparing the paperwork for us. SP seems to have taken a shine to camp assistant manager and is rallying his help in preparing paperwork etc. I am not sure this is legal, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue here. It would appear we should have been busy during this period also, as SP then asks us what flight we have booked, and to where are we going? I am not sure when we were supposed to have had a chance to do this, but it did not seem like a point I should raise at that moment. Seeing our vacant faces, he garbles something to CAM (camp assistant manager) and he gets on the job, again it did not seem we were in a position to argue. CAM gets on his moby and asks us if we want to go to London, ‘NO!’ ………some quick thinking….’Eh, Thailand?’ We both agreed this would be cheap and we would not need a visa to get in. We manage to negotiate with SP that we would like some time to think and try to book a flight for ourselves. ‘Ok, you need to be back here by 3.45pm to get the paperwork finalised.’ It was now about 3pm.

CAM led us down to the nearest town to find an internet cafe. I was crying again. As we reached the town Rich and I decided to go with CAM’s travel agent as we had precious little time left to organise anything. As we found an ATM for cash CAM read out our details over the phone to the agent. ”J for jobby” he spoke into the phone as he began to spell my name… Could the day be any crueller?!?! It helped some to break the mood though…

Back at the station, after a very long wait, we were presented the papers and reminded that we had ruined the SP’s day. I didn’t think it appropriate to mention that he had not made mine either. His mood was lightening though as he introduced us to some coworkers, ‘This is Judith Mundell, she is a designer…and she has been crying ALL day, ha ha!!’

Heading back to the hotel with CAM still clutching our passports, in case we made a dash for the hills, he explained he would book a taxi to drive us overnight to the nearest airport. It was about 8pm and our flight to Bangkok was scheduled for 8am the following morning. Thankfully Onrayaram had not been enlisted, I think a jeep for 6 hours on Indian roads may have sent me over the edge. We packed our bags and had one last tasty Indian dinner, then returned to await our taxi. We hoped there may have been some silver lining in that our vehicle would have been an Ambassador, a very regal looking beast that is a common Indian taxi, it looks a bit like a mini Roller. Sadly no, our chariot rocked up in the form of a Tata Indica Vista. This looks like the cousin of a Corsa, but has less leg room. CAM makes a move to get in the front. We try to lose him, but he explains that instead of a police escort SP had told him to come with us to make sure we leave. It is now 11pm, any last dribble of a sense of humour has well and truly left the building. We slouch into the back seat huffily and close our eyes, hopefully it will all go away. I awake sporadically to find the driver and CAM getting out of the car for tea breaks, do I want a cup of chai? No thanks. At least the driver is determined not to kill us by falling asleep at the wheel, just by his crazy swerving and driving on the wrong side of the road instead.

As day breaks we arrive at Cochin airport. I am too tired to cry again. We stiffly remove ourselves from our contorted positions in the matchbox of a car. As we bundle our rucksacks onto a trolley CAM hands us a name card, it reads Joby E.J Asst. Manager. Thank you Joby, you have really gone above and beyond. I hope you make manager soon. We trundle off, Bangkok bound instead of Rajasthan…..we will be back.

Rail Journeys

Clackety clack, clackety clack, clackety clack.
Whaaah, whaaah!!!
Clackety clack, clackety clack.

The noise of the train beats a steady rythymn as it rumbles north, sandwiched between the heights of the western Ghats and the wide expanse of the Malabar Coast.

We have opted for cheap seats as it is early in the season and cool enough to forgo the AC as an uneccessary luxury. This was the right move. All the windows and doors are wide open allowing the sights, sounds and smells of rural Kerala to flood the carriage in a combined assault on the senses. For the most part this is greatly welcomed, in the stations however, where human bowel movements have decorated the track with odious piles of poop in a variety of colours and consistencies it is not so appealing. NOT using the toilet whilst the train is in the station seems to be an exception rather than a rule.

This is the way train travel should be though. The warm sun bathes my arm and the thick breeze cools the damp sweat on the side of my face. Chai Wallahs sell hot sweet tea in the carriages at each station and the train never moves fast enough to spoil the view of life taking place outside in the world going by. The rocking of the iron rooster soothes rather than sickens and I can’t help but be saddened at the lost romance of rail journeys.

Being borne along in cold silence at 200 miles an hour in a sterile climate controlled aluminium box furnished with powerpoints to accomodate the laptop toting businessmen. Having to pay through the nose for a “service” that is usually late and whose food makes up for what it lacks in taste by an excess of cost. No thanks!

Did I mention we paid the equivelent of one pound each for a journey comparable in distance to that from London to Birmingham and which also left and arrived bang on time.

…And they call this the “developing” world…

Kalarippayattu again

We were so impressed by the Kalarippayattu at the Kerala Kathakali Centre the other day we went back to watch it again. After the show we chatted to the lads and managed to secure an invite to come and watch them train that evening.

The Kerala Dulfukar Kalalayika Kalari Sangam was as hard to find, in a run down residential area of town, as it is to pronounce but what a gem it proved to be. The Gurukkal or Master was not in attendance that evening and Thanseer and Maneer, our two new friends from the KKC were running the lesson for the younger boys.

We watched from the comfort of two plastic garden chairs as the young apprentices practised their routines of gymnastic discipline. We caused a fair amount of distraction I think, the youngsters aged between 9-15 were clearly not used to foreign spectators, although a healthy number of proud fathers stood on the sidelines to watch their sons.

After the lessons were over Thaneer and Manseer requested that I take some pictures of the more acrobatic sequences of their routine. This is exactly what I was after and despite it being dark and having to use a flash I am pretty happy with the results. Hats off to all of them, this kind of activity provides so much for the young adepts, agility, coordination, discipline, strength and self respect to name but a few and to watch it performed with such talent and flair is a privilege.