One crazy day in Dhaka.

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Who did make fun of me because I was flying with Biman Bangladesh Airline to come back from Hong Kong to France? Everybody,right? Ha ha! I've taken my revenge! I had a very pleasant one-day transit in Dhaka.
Dhaka? you know, Bangladesh's capital! Bangladesh? you know, the small country in the north east of India, formerly part of India and then of Paskistan! ;-) (ok ok, for me it's quite new too!)

Actually, without being under the responsability of a local, I wouldn't have had the right to go out of the hotel-for-transit-passagers, where by the way the food is pretty nice : spicy fried vegetables - really spicy and with mixed vegetables cut in small pieces instead of "big green trees" so common in Hong Kong-, curry of mutton and chicken (with a really tasty sauce), lentil soup...Oops, it seems that finally I didn't like so much Hong Kong's food.

Before having got lost in the food description, I was about to thanks Mofizul who accompanied me the whole day, Dr Ibrahim who arranged that for me and invited me for lunch. (aaaaah the lunch... so yummy yummy but I won't write again a paragraph about food, you will think I am obsessed!) and my grand-ma, Dr Ibrahim's friend who contacted him and did her best to avoid me a sleepy day locked in the hotel with TV as unique friend.

No no! I don't want to be rude with the local TV programs, actually I like them, I watched them during the evening and I discovered the magy of the bengaly videoclips! It's a kind of mix of Bollywood's style realization (half romantic-half hot flirt between a beautiful girl and a probably charismatic man) and parody of occidental videos (I've seen a ridiculous choregraphy, inspired by Mickael Jakson's dance!). The result is very impressiv. I love it!

This day, before the TV session, Mofizul showed me some monuments, the old city, we visited the 2-floor national museum about...everything (geography, wildlife, history, architecture, art...)!
And the afternoon was dedicacted to SHOPPING, from bargaining sessions in local markets to the visit of the biggest mall of Dhaka.

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Photos

In the plane
Welcome in an Biman's flight. Let's begin by praying all together, we would like everything to be ok during this flight and God to be with us to avoid any crash.
It's easy, let's follow the prayer on the big screen.

The parliament
nice architecture, nothing around...except some trees to prevent people to take nice pictures from the car.

Aparajeyo Bangla at Dhaka University
represents the war for freedom during the Bengladesh Liberation war in 1971.

Hindu temple
Here we are inside the complex, on the central square.

Comments

[la laissee en Chine]

Sorry Lea I can't help you this time! Let's hope your aunt won't be to strict with you for the statue storie... Paul says hello too.

[Josiane]

Dhaka
As-tu donné les références de ton blog à Ibrahim? Je suis sûre qu'il saurait te dire qui sont les personnages que tu as photographié.... je demanderai à Andrée quand elle viendra chez moi début juillet.

[Samir]

"sacrificed artists and intellectuals"
(Bonjour! Vous etes francaise? Je suis bangladais, et j'aime votre blog :) ) So nice to see that you enjoyed your transit in Dhaka, and made the most of it by going for a tour of the city! Just to give you some more details of the circumstances of the "sacrificed artists and intellectuals".... Just a historical overview: Bangladesh was part of British India (as the province of "East Bengal") upto 1947, and was a part of Pakistan (as the province of "East Pakistan") from 1947 to 1971. Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a nine-month civil war (we Bangladeshis call it "Liberation War"). A few days before the war ended in December 1971, when Pakistan saw that it was losing the war, the Pakistanis and their local collaborators captured many Bengali artists, intellectuals, professors, engineers, and other prominent Bengali citizens, transported them to different locations, executed them and buried them in mass graves. This was a blow that the Pakistanis dealt to the intellectual community of Bangladesh. We commemorate December 14th of each year as "Martyred Intellecuals Day" to remember the intellecuals who were taken away from us in 1971. The statues that you saw also commemorate the martyred intellectuals.

[elite asian girl]

Hong Kong rock!
You kept saying that these market look like Hong kong dude....you're erroneous. Hong Kong market is way better than Dhaka. Yeah~I am a Hong Kong person here....