Srimongol...
The power in my office has gone for the 5th time today, allowing me a brief respite from work and an increasingly rare opportunity to post some thoughts, but can't seem to slow my mind down enough to commit anything substantial to the page. I feel as though I'm turning myself into a walking to-do list, constantly updating, scheduling, rescheduling, adding tasks and tracking the progress... and inevitably losing patience and gaining frustration, and in the process convincing myself more and more that I could do better, that there has to be a more efficient way to do all of this...
I have had some welcome breaks in the last couple of weeks. Along with my teammates and a couple others, I visited Srimongol, a beautifully peaceful part of north-eastern Bangladesh which is home to the tea plantations of the country. Especially when compared to the gray pallidness of Dhaka, the green-carpeted hills of Srimongol felt like an entirely different world. Our group enjoyed 5-flavored tea, an evening hosted by a tea-plantation manager, who fed us the greatest Bangla meal I have yet been privy to in my 6 months here, an unexpected and wonderful "Holi" performance by local villager children, as well as a tour through the region and local villages, and, again unexpectedly, an elephant ride through the forest...
The journey to get there was not without some adventure...
Having risen early after a ridiculously late evening gathering, our tired yet excited group eventually made it to the train station... as only 1 member of our group spoke Bangla, my apologies, IS BANGLA, we requested that he ensure we were in the right place, waiting for the right train, headed to the right place.
The train arrived, we embarked and off we headed.
An hour and a half after we set off, as the train rolled through small villages, the ticket inspector came through our cabin to, not surprisingly, inspect tickets. Having recouped our groups tickets, the now confused looking gentleman called over his colleague, who promptly evaluated the tickets, then raised his hand, pointed a finger in our direction and proceeded to giggle as no grown man has giggled before; we had boarded the train headed in the entirely opposite direction. Thank you my Bangladeshi friend.
For the purposes of my own sanity the rest of the story shall be teh abridged version; we disembarked at the next station, which did not come early enough to prevent a Bangladeshi man from pulling me close and resting his hand on my thigh. Can you say awkward? We walked a short while down the nearest highway, found a bus back to Dhaka, and headed back. On arrival, we discovered the next train was much later in the evening, and could not secure a rental car for cheap enough, so decided to catch another bus to Srimongol. Of course, the bus station at which we arrived was naturally not the station where buses to Srimongol depart...
After commandeering 2 auto-rickshaws, our group headed across town to the other bus station, conveniently forgetting that the day was a Muslim holy festival day, and we were now attempting to traverse across town through a crowd whose size had grown by another estimated 1 million people.
Over an hour and a half later, through 32-degree heat and my lungs now black from smog, we arrived at the station. Only 6 hours later, our bus pulled into Srimongol, a total of 12 and a half hours after we had originally left Dhaka. For the 1st time.
Needless to say we all quadruple-checked our return train ticket.
Fantastic weekend.
I have had some welcome breaks in the last couple of weeks. Along with my teammates and a couple others, I visited Srimongol, a beautifully peaceful part of north-eastern Bangladesh which is home to the tea plantations of the country. Especially when compared to the gray pallidness of Dhaka, the green-carpeted hills of Srimongol felt like an entirely different world. Our group enjoyed 5-flavored tea, an evening hosted by a tea-plantation manager, who fed us the greatest Bangla meal I have yet been privy to in my 6 months here, an unexpected and wonderful "Holi" performance by local villager children, as well as a tour through the region and local villages, and, again unexpectedly, an elephant ride through the forest...
The journey to get there was not without some adventure...
Having risen early after a ridiculously late evening gathering, our tired yet excited group eventually made it to the train station... as only 1 member of our group spoke Bangla, my apologies, IS BANGLA, we requested that he ensure we were in the right place, waiting for the right train, headed to the right place.
The train arrived, we embarked and off we headed.
An hour and a half after we set off, as the train rolled through small villages, the ticket inspector came through our cabin to, not surprisingly, inspect tickets. Having recouped our groups tickets, the now confused looking gentleman called over his colleague, who promptly evaluated the tickets, then raised his hand, pointed a finger in our direction and proceeded to giggle as no grown man has giggled before; we had boarded the train headed in the entirely opposite direction. Thank you my Bangladeshi friend.
For the purposes of my own sanity the rest of the story shall be teh abridged version; we disembarked at the next station, which did not come early enough to prevent a Bangladeshi man from pulling me close and resting his hand on my thigh. Can you say awkward? We walked a short while down the nearest highway, found a bus back to Dhaka, and headed back. On arrival, we discovered the next train was much later in the evening, and could not secure a rental car for cheap enough, so decided to catch another bus to Srimongol. Of course, the bus station at which we arrived was naturally not the station where buses to Srimongol depart...
After commandeering 2 auto-rickshaws, our group headed across town to the other bus station, conveniently forgetting that the day was a Muslim holy festival day, and we were now attempting to traverse across town through a crowd whose size had grown by another estimated 1 million people.
Over an hour and a half later, through 32-degree heat and my lungs now black from smog, we arrived at the station. Only 6 hours later, our bus pulled into Srimongol, a total of 12 and a half hours after we had originally left Dhaka. For the 1st time.
Needless to say we all quadruple-checked our return train ticket.
Fantastic weekend.
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