At Zia International Airport in Dhaka I was greeted by a wall of mosquito's as soon the plane doors opened. Almost all of the travelers on the flight from Yangon were staying in Dhaka in transit only so we all swarmed as one to the transit desk and handed over our passports and onward tickets in exchange for hotel identification tags. I make this process sound extremely straightforward but in reality it was a mass of confusion and many people were furious at the airport officials. After about two hours we were ferried to our respective hotels (mine was the Radial Palace in Banani) accompanied by more mosquito's where again I was greeted by even more mosquito's. To say there was many mosquito's in Dhaka is like saying there are some ruins at Bagan. My insect repellent was woefully inadequate and my stay in Bangladesh featured many mid-air hand-claps, slaps to the back of the neck and wild uncontrollable towel whipping.
I shared a room with Giuseppe Jones, also known as Beppe - an Italian propane salesman whose claim to fame is that he wrote a song in 1993 that made it on to the French and Japanese Top 40 dance chart. The song is 'Do it right' by 'Juice' but he is not particularly proud of it now. He gave me a CD with some of his most recent work and it's very good, especially for someone who creates music purely as a hobby. Beppe travels with a mandolin, one change of clothes and two over-sized 1930s style caps - one of denim and the other in corduroy. His English accent could not sound any more Italian and his demeanor could not be more laid back. I first met him in Bangkok when we shared a minicab to the airport and then flew to Yangon on the same Bangladesh Biman flight. It was impossible to keep in touch with him in Burma but we met by chance in Mandalay at the same guesthouse and again in Yangon where we met up to catch our outbound flight to Kolkata via Dhaka.
The hotel, apart from the mosquito's, was very good. They fed us well, gave us tea and the manager Babu was an avid cricket fan. He quickly got me up to speed with all of the cricket world cup results and we spent much of the next day talking about who we thought would win the tournament. He was pleased that I had seen Bangladesh play in New Zealand last year but he was embarrassed by how badly the team is playing at the moment (something like 30 losses in a row).
Our flight to Kolkata the next day was cancelled but we were given plenty of notice and all of us were switched to a later flight that evening. That meant we had the best part of the day in Dhaka so I walked down to Banani Lake with Beppe and a couple of others to get a feel for the place. We walked through a shantytown, past rubbish dumps and human waste and then to a local cricket field where 40 or so games were going on. Seeing that we had stopped to watch them play many of the kids ran over to tell us their names and to ask us ours. Before long we had quite a crowd of young boys and curious adults carrying naked babies but nothing prepared us for what was to come. A bell rang and hundreds of teenage school girls in blue and white uniforms made their way in pairs onto the ground, giggling as they walked by, some saying hello, many of them very shy. Before long some of them came up to us to say hello and to ask our names and tell us theirs but unlike the boys they spoke perfect English. I had my phrasebook with me so some of them taught me how to count and say thank you in Bangla and we talked of the weather and their school and who had boyfriends etc. Within minutes Beppe, the others and myself commanded our own curious audiences. Even the young Japanese girl with the umbrella whose English was marginal had the girls in fits of laughter. One of the girls I had been talking to, Nadia gave me a beautiful red rose before I left and the others received gifts as well. It was another example of those that have the least are always the most generous. We walked back past the boys playing cricket and the women with the naked babies and through the shantytown with the stench of urine everywhere and back to the comfort of our mosquito-ridden hotel. A few hours later we left for Kolkata, accompanied in the plane by a hundred happy travelling mosquito's.
No comments:
Post a Comment