Blogs from Sylhet, Bangladesh, Asia - page 2

A friend from the UK came to visit me last Friday, and prior to her arrival I/we decided to go on a brief sojourn to Srimongol (there are different spellings, but I’m going to stick to one). Srimongol is where the tea-estates are here in Bangladesh, in the Sylhet region, east of the country, very close to the Indian border. Dhaka is such a chaotic city to live in, and visit, especially for a first-timer to Bangladesh, that I thought it’d be a change in scene to visit Srimongol, as well as the fact that I had never been. I organised the trip through Guide Tours, a travel agent if you will, with an office close to me near Gulshan 2. A few days before the trip, I collected our train ticket (a tiny blue slip ... read more

4 glorious days off work stretched in front of us - how should we spend it? Drinking tea and sheltering from the horrendous daily onslaught of Dhaka noise seemed like a sensational way to escape. We rose early on Friday morning to catch the 4 hour train ride to the northern state of Sylhet, renowned world wide for it's magnificent tea. The jam-packed train station was the usual source of panic for me, made worse by the combination of extreme interest in my sensationally white skin and the presence of Dylan, our friends' baby boy. 8 white people, 2 of them extremely tall, 1 carrying a fair headed, blonde child in a massive backpack, all wandering aimlessly on an overcrowded platform - perfect early morning viewing for the multitude of locals! The train finally arrived and ... read more