It's hot and rainy in Bangladesh!

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I have now arrived and recovered (ooh, a tiny ghecko just ran past my keyboard!) in Dhaka! I left Chartham at 8am yesterday and arrived at the hotel around 11am today (including a 6 hour difference from England, which means a 10 hour difference to the states). Luckily my 32kg pack seemed a lot more manageable for this trip!

I flew with Emirates Air, which meant of course I stopped in Dubai! I wasn't overly thrilled by this first leg, we left 1 1/2 hours late, I was stuck next to the window (I know I know, I should appreciate that, but I just end up feeling trapped!), and Emirates doesn't seem to be exactly forthcoming with the drinks cart.... I did get to watch both Happy Feet (kinds dumb, really) and Pursuit of Happyness (super nice)! I only had a 2 hour layover in Dubai, and so I was a little worried about being so late, especially when we had to take a bus from the plane to the terminal that took something like 20 minutes and arrived after the "last minute cut off time" for my 2am flight. Luckily there was a huge number of people getting on the flight to Dhaka with me, so either they waited for us or that flight was delayed as well, either way it was no problem! And my bag arrived with me in Dhaka, so yay Emirates!

So despite being rather cranky due to my dehydration headache, as soon as I stepped off the plane and was hit by the (shockingly!) hot humid gulf air, I realized how excited I was. Dubai airport (at 1am!) is a real trip!! They have this amazing conveyor belt system under the terminal for luggage sorting, it was like watching the rolling ball scultpure thing they have in airports. Inside was plush and opulent and duty free shopping extravaganza. We went through security again which was, perhaps ironically, extremely lax compared to what I'm used to. A 3 or so year old boy in front of my went running behind the barrier to when the x-ray readers sit, and no one seemed to care....

I sprinted (perhaps needlessly) through the terminal, which was buzzing with activity. Flights appear to never stop in Dubai! There were arab looking men in long tunics sleeping on chairs and the floor, huge south asian families clustered together (there was a family of 17 on my flight! Extended family of course, but that's an awful lot of people to keep an eye on!), and loads of white people looking overwhelmed. And a starbucks, of course! (This part is for you Aziz, of course!) I got on my plane and was, of course, in an overwhelming minority, there was maybe 10 white people on the entire packed 777. I was sitting in row 50, which of course was the last row, but at least I had an aisle seat and a friendly man sitting next to me.

When we arrived I felt overwhelmed like I have never felt before in all my years of travelling! I am more intimidated by this trip than any before, perhaps because this is really the most foreign country I've ever been to, and I'm quite unsure of how to handle myself in a Muslim country. I was slightly on the verge of panicking in the customs hall which was a long line, Bangladeshi style (i.e. people joing from all over and at all points in the line, so not really a line at all!) that didn't seem to be moving at all. However, when a couple people got pulled over to another line, I sprinted right after them.

And that was that! I was able to change $60 into some number of thousands of taka. One dollar is worth 70 taka; I got all these 500 tk notes which made me very worried, until I realized they are worth less than $10.... There was a young man from the hotel with a sign with me name, he called the car around which turned out to be a nice fancy car, not a rickshaw, and we were off. From the airport to the hotel was true developing country stereotype! Dozens of little kids swarming the gates of the hotel, lots of run down 10 story or so buildings (it's very much like the shabby bits of Panama City times 50!), a cow in the street, a man carrying two dead chickens, a man wheeling a table across a busy intersection, and masses of rickshaws that are elaborately decorated, sort of like the buses in Manila.

The hotel turned out to be really nice, I guess what I was secretly hoping for, but certainly not expecting. I have a double bed, my own bathroom, air conditioning, a mini fridge, everything! I've no idea how much it costs, but it's the Army's money anyways! Jon had told me that it is in the Embassy compound, and we did seem to go through a gate or something to get here. Right after I arrived, a man came with a glass of fresh Mango juice! For those of you who also read Corynne's blog, I guess that's the thing to do in tropical countries! I went straight to sleep after settling in, and woke up in the afternoon just before the rains began. They're still going very hard, so I guess I'm excused from venturing out and can just watch Indian musical videos on the TV instead! (Oh yeah, my room has cable too! and plenty of english channels. and a couple spanish ones!)

I suppose that's every last detail that I can muster out of my last 24 hours!

More to come in the next few days, I'm sure!

Here are photos of my fancy room and the view from the windows!

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Comments

[kelly elschot]

kelly
haha, reminds me of my first steps in Bombay.... take care and have a nice time!!