Colors

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In the 40 minute night flight from Dubai to Oman they served us dinner with Gulf Air, I mean with Ryanair in Europe you don't even get water. In the later flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh, we arrived early morning. The plane was full of Bangladeshi laborers from the Gulf countries returning home for vacation. I think Roz was the only female in the airplane, and blond with blue eyes she made quite an impact with the locals. Every time she went up to the bathroom at the front of the plane you could see how every single row had the aisle passengers with their head tilted. And when she came back most must have had seriously injured their neck. There was our first taste of rock star fame. Even funnier got when the plane took their wheels down and almost had not touch the ground yet at 200 miles per hour when almost every local unlock their seatbelts and at once went for the luggage on the top cabins and got in line to go out. They scrambled and rush against each other like their life depended on it. After a few unsuccessful attempts by the flight attendants the pilot himself started screaming down the mic “Sit down, Sit down I tell you!!! Now!!!”. Roz and I were in the floor laughing, it was hysterical. We were received by a family associate and took us through the passports and Visa before you can say hello, well hello I had to pay $50 dollars for a meager 15 day VISA while lucky Irish Roz paid nothing and got a 90 days one. I mean obviously my government hasn't invested a lot around here. Jen was out to greet us and like in San Fran was great to see his academic face; he had to stay around though to receive more guests. We must have been around a total of 30 oversees friends for the wedding. A bit like the UN with Swede majority plus a couple of Spaniards, an Irish, Danish, Koreans, Ethiopians, Zanzibar residents, Indians, English, Pakistanis, Singaporeans, a Nigerian, and all the local family, friends and staff. Imagine the logistics alone.
We were took to the Dutch Club guest house and the ride was quite shocking itself on the craziness, the busy roads, the honking, the colors, the people, it was quite impressive culture shock and I gladly welcome every bit of it.
B, the ever efficient B, was there at the guest house and immediately dispatched us a local SIM card! Roz take notes please. We did shrug off the tiredness though and went out walking into town to the nearest market. On the way while absorbing the lush and jungle decadence of the diplomatic neighborhood buildings we were asked constantly for rickshack rides and only took a minute or so to acquire that head and hand move to indicate politely but decisively no thanks. I was surprise how at ease I was walking around the place, even though we could be spotted at a mile distance. I must say I instantly liked the people and found them most humble but happy and well giving space and distance.

So we just had met Jenny and Johan from Sweden when we convinced them to come with us to the famous bongo market in Dhaka. We found a slot available on our busy training schedule. On the hour long ride we had time to meet each other and we would become friends over the week long stay. My Spanish friend Borja would not make it since he had to catch up with his jet lag and party sleep depravation. I would like to dedicate an entire blog to this character but I’ll spare you for now. Immediately hitting the streets the traffic was half jammed half flowing with the constant and arrhythmic honking coming from everywhere. Only on the center of the city I realized that a stop light was actually acknowledge by all, must have been the RAB and the military post on the plaza. The RAB, Rapid Action Battalion, are a special police unit that impose fear, I mean the guys wear black from top to bottom including black bandanas. You want to take a picture of them but they just might shot at you and plant evidences, like one of the usual stories that you read on the local papers were would be political foes or terrorist die on an exchange of fire with the RAB forces. On the other hand I was told the story that when the force was created they called it Rapid Action Team, or RAT, luckily for them some big honcho realized on time before having the uniforms made with the big acronyms on white in the back of their black shirts.

On the political side the democracy is suppose to be in shambles with the opposition party claiming that the elections presented by the caretaker government is rigged and so on. So they have caretaker government which its function is to be neutral so elections can be fairly held, well guess who appoints this transitional government, the same previous ruling party. Corruption apparently is at one of the highest levels here where if you are waiting for property to be build up and happen to be on the wrong side you don’t get any permits while if you are on the right side and pay for access and time to the right person you get things done. Freedom of the press was still upheld then since you could read it about all this right then and there on the papers, now it seems is a different story. Unfortunately all this unrest about the elections and the bitterness and corruption between main political parties would give way to a discontent rising religious middle class and a door open for Islamic extremism. One would hope that the cloud and importance the country got after the Peace Nobel Prize award was given to Muhammad Yunus and his work through the Grameen bank would benefit them, that’s the type of person should be running for office.

Police and political corruption aside we made it to the old part of the city and the van could hardly move through the tiny streets, the scooter and rickshaw traffic and sometimes trucks?, the street vendors and the people. I mean that is humanity at is best and as in India we realized that in this part of the world you area hardly ever alone on a public place. We were shown and old museum house on a nice quaint park and an old mosque and of course being the only white tourists we had people coming to us and asking us for our names and place of origin, another would be constant on the days to come. When we got to the Market, we all were ready to step out of the vehicle at this point; and dazed and confused we stumbled into a self appointing guide. We did appreciate though to be able to be pointed at where to shop what we were looking for through the intricate and claustrophobic market, I mean there were rows after rows of different items booths that were separated by barely a meter were customers in both direction attempted to go through. The vendors itself sited atop their stalls and shouted at every passing person their incredible bargains and prices. Most of it was garments, major Banglah industry, and giving the weather a surprising amount of sweater and heavy jackets. We did not find Zara or Diesel replicas though. The girls went for local design shirts and sarees. One of the most hilarious scenes was at the point were me and Johan stepped out a little out of the way of a corner stall and a family of 5 all woman and little kids dressed on traditional sarees stopped right in front of Johan and stared at him on a semi circle commenting and laughing with each other. Johan’s face and smile was instant classic, like a first time model put on a Benetton glass front. What we did not appreciate afterwards from our guide was his cunning capacity of negotiating between us and the vendors. At first we though he was of great service and we showed him through a hefty tip and padded our selves on the back but when we came back to the Dutch club and told our local friend she laughed at us all the way. I mean we did haggle every time to half of what we were told, but obviously thanks to our skin and the guide prices seemed to be 4 times the usual. So our first market we obviously got ripped of, an well that’s how you learn. Never the less we love what we bought and still it beats any price you could have paid in any western stall.

The day of the Gaye Halud arrived, our first ceremony. We were given traditional male Bangladeshi long shirts and the woman would wear top blouses and petty coats with the sarees wrapped around. When we enter the hotel where the festivities were held a bunch of Video cameras and flashes assailed us coming out of the minibus. In the hall we were received with flower collars and scarfs and given baskets to carry with different sweets and offerings for the couple.
Jens looked like a white Buddha sitting up there with the traditional costume and flower necklaces on a perfect lotus position. He was sitting atop the main stand that had a bright red silk cover and was wrapped in thousand yellow flowers. Serious and composed as he was he couldn’t help his funny eyebrow move look and smile when we laughed at him. Beanus entrance was even more striking. She was wearing traditional saree as well with an astonishing flower collar and head piece carried by her brother’s arm under a beautiful red cover carried by 6 big tall Nubians, just kidding, carried over their heads by friends and relatives.

Roz was not settled about the dancing moves. We have been practicing for a while now, this was our third day we had practice with a teacher and she was tougher than Fame’s one. Lucky me I had only one dance to do, Roz landed two and the second one was definitely harder. They were some kind of Bollywood inspired moves to a mix of Indian dance beats. When the day of the Gaye Halud came we had one more training session in the morning and then it was all ready for Showtime. After all the ceremony took place it was time for us to entertain the guests and Roz was freaking out more than ever, she was going through a severe case of stage fright but when it was time to go we all went through the steps without major mishaps and good coordination. One song in particular of the music it was used for our bollywood steps it really could transport you far away, the Indian sound, the voice, the deep bass, and the dancing number of beautiful Bangladeshi women, their colors and the place colors all wonderfully collided. Yes I think the bar was open at that time. Once we were done we all cheer up with more drinks and then the place exploded with party music and everybody went dancing, at this point Beanus father was taking in the middle and a circle was created were all of us were cheering on, this part was definitely the least formal but one of the most improve, happier and enjoyable of all. The party continued back on the Dutch club where our bartenders friends were about to close, they happily stayed open for us but little they knew it won’t be until at least six am they would be closing. Adel showed them how to make dirty Mexican shots, baileys and tequila, surprisingly effective and smooth at night but not the next day.

In the morning I had to pick the pieces of my body and sign up for the boat trip, Roz couldn’t wake up, Adel didn’t wake up till 4:30pm. First half of the boat trip was dedicated to a fierce Winner takes all Texas holdem game. As usual I did not make it to the end and I lost a total of 1000 Tk or $14.3, a lot of money here, I mean Johan, the quite guy in the corner and of course the one that took all the bounty made 13000 or $186 , enough to pay up for his entire weeks stay.

After the Poker game and a lavish lunch I felt rather human and my hangover seem to be gone so I made it upstairs to the top deck and seize up on the Bangladeshi river life. The trip had started north of the city and all there was to see was the green landscape dotted with the same brick oven towers all over the north side of the river bank and thousand of barges transporting sand up and down the river for bricks and cement making. During the poker I missed Central Dhaka but I was able to catch it back up returning on the upstream. The river becomes enormously wide, haven’t seen such a wide river in many years with no bridges for miles around, water taxis being the only way around to cross it. This little boats, yes the same one as on the lonely planet cover, are everywhere crossing the river and they generally wouldn’t be motorized so our Ferry kind of had to blast the horn and march through them hopping to pass through without incidents, barely missing them for centimeters at times. Not surprisingly pretty similar to the way they drive around here. It was a great way to see the city an how they trade and transport food, materials animals an humans up and down the river. You could just wave and wave your hand t everybody and they would be returning their most ardent waves back. Didn’t quite understand then why when I turned around to get water downstairs I found a crew member pointing a double barrel shotgun at me. I think manage to say something like dude I’m just going to get some water so could you just point the gun somewhere else, the fellow realized and pointed the gun upwards saying something about being there for our protection, protection from what? All those friendly and smiley faces? Locals did not hit me as the smiley backstabbing pirate type, really. When I came back up I realized the gun was out there really for sport and amusement of a very drunk, must have been wealthy as well cause other wise doesn’t make sense, Asian passenger who started shooting birds from the deck. I think they made him stop when the entire European crowd started going down below to cover themselves from gungho drinking mishandling. Like in India as well I will discover that here anything can be made possible. After leaving downtown we passed through some riverbed shanty towns where the kids would follow the Ferry upstream for as long as they could smiling running screaming and waving all the way through. A girl in particular must had gone for over a mile up and down cliffs, walls, drop offs, garages, makeshift docks just to wave at us. When you see that you realized that beyond the poverty of the shanty town life there is so much hope and light on them.
I hope the future does not get taken away and more education is available to more share of the population. Reading, writing, social science and engineering is going to be needed for a not so pinky future lies ahead of them with more weather changing patters, rising seas, pollution and drinking water scarce follows with more pressure on this overpopulated ecosystem. Water treatment has improved and the arsenic from the water wells that killed so many people on the past seems to be under control. There is a massive employment for all type recycling and actually you can see on the river be how the strip all plastic from all garbage. A solution though that needs to come from a strong government needs to be in place to all the polluting street garbage burning and most of all those dam brick oven chimneys. Almost reaching the end of the river trip we came about a really dantesque and surreal landscape. All those thousand of brick ovens that dot the landscape were sending the smoke toward us to the point where the sunset got blocked and darken and all the beautiful faces and people from before were gone and all there was left on the horizon was the most vivid description of hell you could think of. To make matters worse the air got so bad I got really sick an couldn’t shake it till got to Pondicherry in India and left pollution ridden Dhaka, Calcutta and Chennay. But same as the government did by banning the 2 stroke auto rickshaws in Dhaka they could take care of it sooner rather than later.
The following days we attended two more celebrations and enjoyed more the hospitality of our guests. We had more night parties of course and we laughed a lot with our friends and the club’s bartenders, to the point that we might have got them into trouble with management. Not all the guests belong to the wedding and they were not amused with our festive behavior. The last night after a magnificent dinner and reception at the capitals newest western hotel we headed towards B’s house for a real house party with house beats, full bar and photo and video wedding presentations. The house was like being inside a Christmas tree, I think they bought all the lights they could find around the capital and lighted the house and the whole street. Sadly had to say goodbye early to everybody and miss the after-hours fun session by DJ Dan and Borja because fever and an early flight to Calcutta was taking the best out of me. Almost literally, next day our driver decided to pull off a Hollywood stunt and drove against traffic for 300 meters in a 6 line national highway.

In total we spend a wonderful week in company of old and new friends sharing the moment. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I visit them back here because there is a thousand other things to see and do in this country and even work possibilities might come up. We loved the people above all and the vivid colors everywhere, specially their clothing and the crazy bicycle rickshaws.
Can’t promise when will there be a next installment but thank you for the support and the harrasment we have received to upload photos from the wedding. Nowadays text doesn't seem to be as popular so India, Thailand, Cambodia and Borneo should be much shorter.

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Photos

Henna session
Even though all the guys laughed at Borja for stepping out into the plate we all ended up doing it.