North by North Bengal
I returned from our three-day excursion to Rajshahi division at 2am on Tuesday morning but, with reference to my last post, I’m still looking forward to visiting Rajshahi.
As it turns out, we weren’t intended to visit the actual city at all; in fact, we weren’t even going to get within 200 km of the place. It wasn’t until 3pm, six hours after our originally scheduled departure time from the day before, that our small five-person field team eventually climbed into the microbus and I was informed that we were actually headed to Rangpur, seven hours due north of Dhaka. While the city I had thought we’d be visiting is known for its architecture and the Varendra Research Museum, the oldest in the country, Rangpur and the rest of north Bengal is known for its equally-as-stimulating yogurt…so I didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it all the same.
The journey northwards was slightly more hair-raising than usual; our driver was younger and quite a bit more aggressive than Hamid, the pilot of the Pajero in which we usually have the good fortune of riding. It was also Marc’s first time in the front seat (an experience I was already well-acquainted with and therefore more than willing to pass up). The first words out of his mouth upon reaching Rangpur? “I need a stiff scotch and a cigarette” – a statement that characterized the experience of riding shotgun in a Bangladeshi microbus unrestricted by a speedometer and commanded by a fearless driver hyped-up on betel nuts and vine leaves.
The driver wasn’t the only source of concern, either; our late departure time meant that the enveloping darkness was soon upon us. The farther north we traveled, the darker and mistier it became. The only stretch of road on which this didn’t pose a problem was on the four-lane Bangabandhu Bridge that spans the Jamuna River between Dhaka and Rajshahi divisions. The longest in the country, the bridge was built and financed in cooperation with China and South Korea. In the absence of streetlights, most of the road on which we traveled was therefore lit by the small oil lanterns dangling underneath the rickshaws passing us by on either side of the van.
The brickyards lining the highway from Dhaka to Bogra weren’t much of a help either, though you could still differentiate the dense smoke coming from the tip of their cigar-shaped smokestacks from the lighter sky lit up by the moon. It’s probably for the better that they’re not equipped with blinking lights anyways; the way they’re scattered all over the fields and rice paddies stretching into the horizon doesn’t make them very useful navigation tools. A local friend of mine tells me that most of the hundreds of thousands of bricks produced by these yards are destined strictly for Dhaka, a testament to the size of the current construction boom that’s visible all over the city.
We made it to Rangpur by 10pm and quickly found a restaurant close to our hotel to eat a very late dinner for us Canadians, but only about an hour later than normal for most Bangladeshis. It seemed harmless enough - rutti, chicken, vegetables and mutton – and tasted fine, but the next morning would prove that taste is not an accurate measure of food-safety.
Without getting into too much graphic detail, my post-mutton morning wasn’t the most enjoyable I’ve ever experienced…but it was certainly colourful. [Insert graphic mental image here]. Once the worst of what I’d call MonteZia’s Revenge was over (a sly reference to the late President Zia Rahman, the “father of the nation”) I spent the rest of the morning in bed and the afternoon walking in a bit of a nauseous daze. What made me feel slightly better, however, was that I wasn’t alone: three others from our group who also ate the mutton the previous evening were suffering from similar symptoms, though I’m pretty sure I received the worst that the bacteria in question had to offer.
Running on a lunch of yogurt and rice, I managed to participate in our afternoon and evening program consisting primarily of a surreal visit to Bijoy Nagar, an attraction that’s a strange mix between an amusement park and a picnic ground and one that can only be found in the developing world. The park, a bumpy ten-minutes outside of Rangpur, is still under the construction (as most things are these days). The life-size dinosaurs and small mechanical rides that add another dimension to the otherwise barren field are only a recent addition, however, as the primary reason for visiting the area has always been its suitability for picnicking.
Women in their finest sarees, plenty of excited children and large blankets laid out on the grass to accommodate multiple extended families characterize the average picnic group at places like this. With few opportunities for relaxed socializing in a public space in the city, an outing like this represents an opportunity to meet new people, make new friends and even enjoy the outdoors (despite the gangs of crows and wild dogs that inhabit this particular locale). Given the state of our stomachs, though, the three of us weren’t too keen on spending too much time lingering nearby the handful of pots cooking on top of the open fires setup next to each group.
After returning to our hotel once we’d had enough ‘sight-seeing’ for one day, I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sleep off the lingering effects of mutton-poisoning while Marc and Helal took advantage of their free time to do some handicraft shopping in the local bazaar and the city jail (a source of high-quality hand-made goods in most large towns throughout the country). Though my appetite had returned over the course of the afternoon, I still couldn’t handle more than a couple rutti and some yogurt for dinner. It wasn’t long before I had taken another two Imodium pills for good measure and was back in bed, fast asleep.
The last day of short excursion to north Bengal was as busy as our average day in Khulna two weeks ago. The most productive item on the agenda was our view-exchange meeting with the Gaibandha Task Force Against Torture, the largest of said groups I’ve seen so far. On top of their impressive size was the diversity of their membership; while most TFTs include local journalists, doctors and lawyers, this one also featured local theatre activists who had staged two street dramas that morning focused on building awareness against torture in their community.
BRCT’s long-term plan is to encourage current and future TFTs to eventually dissolve and reconstitute themselves as independent human rights organizations. They’ll use the experience and notoriety they’ve gained from conducting their regular TFT activities – jail visits, fact-finding missions, treatment referrals and public rallies – to expand their mandate to include other pertinent human rights issues and strengthen the growing, nation-wide human rights movement at the district level. At least that’s the idea.
Our busy schedule also meant more opportunities to find out how most people make their living up there. Unlike the geographic differences between Western, Central and Eastern Canada that determine what will be produced in each region, the agricultural and manufactured goods coming from each region are all characterized by the same things: bananas, rice, jute, bricks and textiles. The one region that has a unique claim in this respect is Sylhet in the northeast, the home of Bangladesh’s tea plantations.
Nevertheless, there are still a few differences that become apparent if you look a little closer at the green and yellow–speckled fields that occupy most of the arable land, or, in Khulna’s case, at the pools and shrimp-filled ponds lining the highway. Rajshahi is known for its yogurt (which would explain all the cows) and its abundant banana crops, but also for flavourful lychee in May and June, the cotton grown on its many plantations and the silk produced farther south near the city bearing the division’s name.
Before we wound up the weekend’s program with our visit to the offices of The Daily Karatoa newspaper in Bogra where we met with the four members of the city’s three-month old TFT group, our two-vehicle convoy pulled into Dream Land, a statue park close to the highway that’s home to larger-than-life sized busts of notable Bangladeshi personalities and a fair number of foreigners as well. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were among them, but I was particularly pleased to find the hand-carved, freshly polished face of none other than Alexander Graham Bell staring back at me from his three-foot high podium.
As day turned into night we began our journey back home to Dhaka, stopping outside Bogra for each of us to pick up a clay pot-full of homemade yogurt from the Saudi Hotel (I think), apparently the best in the country. The petrol fumes emanating from the engine of our microbus were the most likely explanation for the laid-back mood each of us found ourselves in for the duration of the return trip home. It’s also perhaps why we found the truckloads of water buffalo coming from India to be so hilarious. Things might have been different, though, if we had been running on our then-empty natural gas tank (CNG), as it’s both a cheaper and cleaner burning fuel: 175 taka worth took us our first 300km before we finally switched over to our reserve petrol tank.
With three of the four corners of the country already covered, all that’s left to discover now are the rolling hills of Sylhet division in the northeast. But I think I’ll have to wait until next year to do so…
As it turns out, we weren’t intended to visit the actual city at all; in fact, we weren’t even going to get within 200 km of the place. It wasn’t until 3pm, six hours after our originally scheduled departure time from the day before, that our small five-person field team eventually climbed into the microbus and I was informed that we were actually headed to Rangpur, seven hours due north of Dhaka. While the city I had thought we’d be visiting is known for its architecture and the Varendra Research Museum, the oldest in the country, Rangpur and the rest of north Bengal is known for its equally-as-stimulating yogurt…so I didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it all the same.
The journey northwards was slightly more hair-raising than usual; our driver was younger and quite a bit more aggressive than Hamid, the pilot of the Pajero in which we usually have the good fortune of riding. It was also Marc’s first time in the front seat (an experience I was already well-acquainted with and therefore more than willing to pass up). The first words out of his mouth upon reaching Rangpur? “I need a stiff scotch and a cigarette” – a statement that characterized the experience of riding shotgun in a Bangladeshi microbus unrestricted by a speedometer and commanded by a fearless driver hyped-up on betel nuts and vine leaves.
The driver wasn’t the only source of concern, either; our late departure time meant that the enveloping darkness was soon upon us. The farther north we traveled, the darker and mistier it became. The only stretch of road on which this didn’t pose a problem was on the four-lane Bangabandhu Bridge that spans the Jamuna River between Dhaka and Rajshahi divisions. The longest in the country, the bridge was built and financed in cooperation with China and South Korea. In the absence of streetlights, most of the road on which we traveled was therefore lit by the small oil lanterns dangling underneath the rickshaws passing us by on either side of the van.
The brickyards lining the highway from Dhaka to Bogra weren’t much of a help either, though you could still differentiate the dense smoke coming from the tip of their cigar-shaped smokestacks from the lighter sky lit up by the moon. It’s probably for the better that they’re not equipped with blinking lights anyways; the way they’re scattered all over the fields and rice paddies stretching into the horizon doesn’t make them very useful navigation tools. A local friend of mine tells me that most of the hundreds of thousands of bricks produced by these yards are destined strictly for Dhaka, a testament to the size of the current construction boom that’s visible all over the city.
We made it to Rangpur by 10pm and quickly found a restaurant close to our hotel to eat a very late dinner for us Canadians, but only about an hour later than normal for most Bangladeshis. It seemed harmless enough - rutti, chicken, vegetables and mutton – and tasted fine, but the next morning would prove that taste is not an accurate measure of food-safety.
Without getting into too much graphic detail, my post-mutton morning wasn’t the most enjoyable I’ve ever experienced…but it was certainly colourful. [Insert graphic mental image here]. Once the worst of what I’d call MonteZia’s Revenge was over (a sly reference to the late President Zia Rahman, the “father of the nation”) I spent the rest of the morning in bed and the afternoon walking in a bit of a nauseous daze. What made me feel slightly better, however, was that I wasn’t alone: three others from our group who also ate the mutton the previous evening were suffering from similar symptoms, though I’m pretty sure I received the worst that the bacteria in question had to offer.
Running on a lunch of yogurt and rice, I managed to participate in our afternoon and evening program consisting primarily of a surreal visit to Bijoy Nagar, an attraction that’s a strange mix between an amusement park and a picnic ground and one that can only be found in the developing world. The park, a bumpy ten-minutes outside of Rangpur, is still under the construction (as most things are these days). The life-size dinosaurs and small mechanical rides that add another dimension to the otherwise barren field are only a recent addition, however, as the primary reason for visiting the area has always been its suitability for picnicking.
Women in their finest sarees, plenty of excited children and large blankets laid out on the grass to accommodate multiple extended families characterize the average picnic group at places like this. With few opportunities for relaxed socializing in a public space in the city, an outing like this represents an opportunity to meet new people, make new friends and even enjoy the outdoors (despite the gangs of crows and wild dogs that inhabit this particular locale). Given the state of our stomachs, though, the three of us weren’t too keen on spending too much time lingering nearby the handful of pots cooking on top of the open fires setup next to each group.
After returning to our hotel once we’d had enough ‘sight-seeing’ for one day, I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sleep off the lingering effects of mutton-poisoning while Marc and Helal took advantage of their free time to do some handicraft shopping in the local bazaar and the city jail (a source of high-quality hand-made goods in most large towns throughout the country). Though my appetite had returned over the course of the afternoon, I still couldn’t handle more than a couple rutti and some yogurt for dinner. It wasn’t long before I had taken another two Imodium pills for good measure and was back in bed, fast asleep.
The last day of short excursion to north Bengal was as busy as our average day in Khulna two weeks ago. The most productive item on the agenda was our view-exchange meeting with the Gaibandha Task Force Against Torture, the largest of said groups I’ve seen so far. On top of their impressive size was the diversity of their membership; while most TFTs include local journalists, doctors and lawyers, this one also featured local theatre activists who had staged two street dramas that morning focused on building awareness against torture in their community.
BRCT’s long-term plan is to encourage current and future TFTs to eventually dissolve and reconstitute themselves as independent human rights organizations. They’ll use the experience and notoriety they’ve gained from conducting their regular TFT activities – jail visits, fact-finding missions, treatment referrals and public rallies – to expand their mandate to include other pertinent human rights issues and strengthen the growing, nation-wide human rights movement at the district level. At least that’s the idea.
Our busy schedule also meant more opportunities to find out how most people make their living up there. Unlike the geographic differences between Western, Central and Eastern Canada that determine what will be produced in each region, the agricultural and manufactured goods coming from each region are all characterized by the same things: bananas, rice, jute, bricks and textiles. The one region that has a unique claim in this respect is Sylhet in the northeast, the home of Bangladesh’s tea plantations.
Nevertheless, there are still a few differences that become apparent if you look a little closer at the green and yellow–speckled fields that occupy most of the arable land, or, in Khulna’s case, at the pools and shrimp-filled ponds lining the highway. Rajshahi is known for its yogurt (which would explain all the cows) and its abundant banana crops, but also for flavourful lychee in May and June, the cotton grown on its many plantations and the silk produced farther south near the city bearing the division’s name.
Before we wound up the weekend’s program with our visit to the offices of The Daily Karatoa newspaper in Bogra where we met with the four members of the city’s three-month old TFT group, our two-vehicle convoy pulled into Dream Land, a statue park close to the highway that’s home to larger-than-life sized busts of notable Bangladeshi personalities and a fair number of foreigners as well. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were among them, but I was particularly pleased to find the hand-carved, freshly polished face of none other than Alexander Graham Bell staring back at me from his three-foot high podium.
As day turned into night we began our journey back home to Dhaka, stopping outside Bogra for each of us to pick up a clay pot-full of homemade yogurt from the Saudi Hotel (I think), apparently the best in the country. The petrol fumes emanating from the engine of our microbus were the most likely explanation for the laid-back mood each of us found ourselves in for the duration of the return trip home. It’s also perhaps why we found the truckloads of water buffalo coming from India to be so hilarious. Things might have been different, though, if we had been running on our then-empty natural gas tank (CNG), as it’s both a cheaper and cleaner burning fuel: 175 taka worth took us our first 300km before we finally switched over to our reserve petrol tank.
With three of the four corners of the country already covered, all that’s left to discover now are the rolling hills of Sylhet division in the northeast. But I think I’ll have to wait until next year to do so…
posted by Per at 10:32 a.m.
<< Home