more dhaka

Tomorrow we leave for Chittagong and Cox's Bazar (which has the world's longest sea beach!) We will be back to Dhaka again on Sunday. We've spent the past few days taking it easy, venturing out into Dhaka a bit. It's an overwhelming place but I don't dislike it. I am not entirely sure that I like it yet - it takes some time to get to know. Two observations about Dhaka:

1. Air pollution - it's horrible. You can hardly breathe when you're outside. Micah and I read a newspaper article today about how the air has actually become toxic and unsafe for people to breathe, and recommends staying inside as much as possible. It's soooo bad. People are constantly spitting all over the place - I mean like, snorting back all the snot with a big "Unnnkkkkkshskhshshhkkk" sound, and then shooting a huge glob out the bus window, on the sidewalk, wherever - and that's why. Air pollution. Yuck.

2. Thai/Chinese restaurants. They are EVERYWHERE. Every single restaurant in Dhaka is Thai/Chinese food! (With the exception of the local hole-in-the-wall Bengali food places, which are kind of off limits to us foreigners if we don't want food poisoning.) Okay, I exaggerate a little bit, but about 95% of restaurants are Thai/Chinese. We spent ages last night trying to find ANYTHING else. We finally settled on a place that was Thai/Chinese/Indian so we could at least order from the Indian menu. We even went by one place that was called "Shwarma Palace", and even that was entirely Thai/Chinese food. Today I cracked and went to the grocery store and bought bread and peanut butter because I couldn't handle eating Thai/Chinese again, haha. Peanutbutter here tastes like plasticine. Maybe I'll go back to Thai/Chinese.

For the most part, this trip has been so hectic I've had no time to process anything. Today was the first day I felt particularly stressed out. Micah had a bad day last Friday when he was sick and everything hit him - it gets overwhelming here sometimes - and I had a bit of a bad day today. Everything kind of got to me at once - all the staring, the language barrier, the Thai/Chinese restaurant monopoly, the bare-footed 7 year old kids begging for money in the streets or digging in garbage, the over-friendly hotel staff, the insane amount of information thrown at us in the past week, worries about money, the film, everything... I just had to shut myself in my hotel room with a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar and cry for 10 minutes. And then I felt better. I still don't feel overly culture-shocked... just really bombarded.

Tonight we went out with Zabir and saw some of the Dhaka University campus. Zabir and Micah like to have intense arguments/discussions about a variety of things, and since they're both so opinionated and stubborn and get really fired up, I can't get two words in anywhere. When they get going I suddenly feel like a little kid entertaining herself in the corner while the grown-ups are talking, haha. It's good though, it gives me some time to reflect and think because I can ignore them and focus on my own thoughts for awhile.

I thought I should post a few more pics, since my last picture post was looking too much like a World Vision advert. Here are some from Dhaka - city view from the Grameen office building, overlooking a field with kids playing cricket/flying kites, and a shot of some very light (seriously) traffic near the University campus.

tangail/dhaka

I have so much to say I don't even know where to start. I can't do justice to everything. Must attempt to summarize. Scroll down to last post for new photos. :)

We've had a hectic week. Tuesday morning we left Dhaka on a 5 hour bus journey into Bangladesh's Tangail district, to visit some of the poor villagers and interview Grameen Bank borrowers. It was an experience and a half. The first thing we did when we got off the bus in Tangail was go to a tea stall, which is not much more than a tiny shack where they serve you a little cup of tea in a sketchy looking cup. (Though I will say that despite concerns of hygeine, the tea from the stalls is fantastic - very sweet.) But when we stopped, all of a sudden a massive crowd formed. More than 50 people just crowded around, gawking at us. Extremely weird experience for me. I am shy and do not particularly enjoy lots of people looking at me. It was very very strange and awkward. For the whole 3 days, anywhere we went, a crowd of a similar size gathered. And when we walked someplace a whole parade would follow. (I posted a tea stall crowd pic below - sooooo crazy.)

We spent 3 days staying at one of Grameen's branch offices. Among many other things I learned how to eat with my hand (that's the custom here, they don't use utensils) and use a squat toilet. Micah had even more fun with the squat toilet, because he came down with some sort of stomach bug while we were there and spent a whole night puking. I didn't envy him... the squat toilet pretty much consisted of a hole in the ground in a small concrete room full of massive hairy spiders, haha.

Visiting the villages was really interesting. The people were really curious about us, and hordes of children chased us around everywhere, but people were so nice and friendly and accommodating, and they all wanted to show us around their villages, and take us inside their houses, and speak to us. We had a translator the whole time, named Younus (who kind of looked like a Bengali Billy Crystal) and he helped us talk to the borrowers and ask questions. The whole thing was just incredible - I really didn't expect to be doing things like this! Though admittedly after 3 days I was ready to come back to Dhaka - the novelty of getting swarmed every time we went outside was wearing off. :( Seriously, I don't know how celebrities handle this kind of attention all the time - I felt sooooo self-conscious! One kid even asked for my autograph, and another guy kept taking pics of me on his camera phone!! And at one point I was in a car by myself waiting for Micah and Younus to come back and a group of people almost surrounded the car and were just leaning over staring at me in the window. At one point Micah asked an old man (via Younus) what they all found so interesting, and the man said they have never seen people like us before. So, so surreal.

Oh, one cool thing though - in one of the villages we visited a sari making factory where they actually weave the fabric. It was such an interesting process - aaaaand I bought a sari! NO idea when I'll ever wear such a thing. It's not even a super fancy one, it's pretty much a basic everyday wear type of sari, so I can't even hold out hope of being invited to a wedding. Maybe I'll make some curtains with it when I get home.

I feel like I am really glossing over the past few days in this post but so much happened that I can't do justice to it all. The pics help a bit. On the way home, we saw some crazy accidents - the Lonely Planet Bangladesh said that if you were not involved in a bus accident in Bangladesh, you would witness a bus accident or at least the aftermath - SO TRUE. We saw a demolished bus that had gone over a steep ledge into a pond. And then two trucks that had had a head on collision and one of them flipped over. And then another bus with the top smashed in, probably also from flipping. So scary. Even tonight while we were driving back to the hotel via baby-taxi, a bus rear-ended us. It's mental, I can't even articulate it.

Today was a very different day - we saw a bit of Dhaka, I got to do a little bit of shopping. We met up with my friend Zabir, and he took us to a massive shopping mall (the biggest in South Asia I think?) which was a HUGE change from the rural villages. Once you get to the wealthier parts of Bangladesh, everything is modern and almost nobody stares. It's hard to believe it's all the same country - a few hours away is like a different world.

On a different note, today I did my laundry for the first time in three weeks. That's a long time when you only have 3 outfits to interchange. I'm so gross.

photos from tangail

Photos from our visit to the Tangail district of Bangladesh:

1. Sun over a rice field.
2. Me and Micah at a tea stall, surrounded by 50+ people staring at us. Ahhhhh!!!
3. The main road - the building on the left with the posters is a movie theatre.
4. A house in one of the villages.
5. Outside a woman's house - I just think it's an interesting photo.
6. Me and Micah at another tea stall. Tea is sooooo good here.
7. Me and Micah surrounded by overexcited children.
8. The most adorable kid ever.
9. One last gratuitous shot of cute local village children. It's cliché, I know. I'll stop!

dhaka

(Note: I posted some pics from Dubai in the post below this one - too complicated to combine with this post.)

We're in Dhaka! Arrived last night, got picked up at the airport by a man from our hotel who was waiting for us with Micah's name on a sign. He drove us to our hotel, via a sketchy back road to avoid city traffic because it was a holiday of some sort here. That drive was a good introduction to Dhaka - there are NO road rules here. Everyone is all over the place, honking and swerving. About 20 times we narrowly missed sideswiping and crashing into other cars by millimeters. Rickshaws and pedestrians drive/run in front of cars constantly. And the sketchy back road was so bumpy we were flying all over the place in the backseat. Near death experience. And yet, somehow really fun! (Actually every time you cross the street here it's a near death experience. You run for it and hope the cars slow down.)

One more thing about the drive: Jenn, are you listening to this? As soon as we got in the car, the hotel guy puts a CD in... and the first song that comes on... Deewangi Deewangi from Om Shanti Om! I was dancing in the backseat. The guy was like "You know Hindi?!" and I was like "Noooo, I just watch all the movies." Nothing to make me feel more at home in a foreign country than some Om Shanti Om soundtrack, haha.

When we got out of the car at the hotel, two little boys ran up to me and one started tugging on my shirt asking for money. It was kind of surreal. I mean I knew to expect stuff like that, but it's different when you see it. Hard to imagine.

Our hotel is actually pretty nice. I have a big comfortable room (far nicer than my place in Ottawa was, haha) with a TV. There is a sweet Bollywood music video channel which pretty much completes my life.

Today we went to meet with the people at Grameen Bank. (I.e. the people we're attempting to write the film about.) It was so interesting, we spent all day in meetings with some of the people who have been with Grameen since it started in 1976. We met so many people from the book! (Banker to the Poor, the basis of our script.) So we spent all day learning about microfinance and getting an introduction to the whole thing. They've set us up with a crazy schedule for the next 2 weeks. Early tomorrow morning we are setting out on a 5 hour bus journey and spending 3 nights in a rural village with a translator, interviewing the people who are actually borrowers of the bank and seeing the whole process first hand. We come back to Dhaka for the weekend (Friday/Saturday) then next week we are going to Chittagong, and then Jobra, which is the village where Grameen first started. Amazing. I had no idea we'd get to do so much hands on stuff and meet so many people, but it's really exciting. (No idea what is going on with the film though - turns out there are some other people working on a film too, and they've recruited some dude who wrote a bunch of Star Trek films to write this one. I mean, this guy wrote The Wrath of Khan... how do we compete with THAT? Haha.)

Anyway, we spent all day there so I still have yet to see any of Dhaka, with the exception of the rickshaw ride there and the walk back. There are tiny culture shocks but they haven't hit me yet because I've spent most of my time inside Grameen offices and a cushy hotel. One big thing - people stare alot. Obviously, it was expected, but it makes me feel exceptionally awkward. I am dealing with this by not looking at anyone so I don't notice them looking at me, haha. The other thing - we were walking back and this animal comes bounding down the sidewalk and I said, "Awww Micah look, a dog!" And he was like "Um... that's a goat." Which it was. I just wasn't expecting a goat on the sidewalk.

That is all for now. I haven't even taken any photos yet - no time! More when I return from the village (can't remember the name) in a few days!

photos from dubai!

1. Me and Tiffany in London
2. Dubai Creek
3. Fancy hotel area of Dubai (not where we stayed!)
4. Dubai Creek by night
5. Me and Micah crossing the creek on an abra (see boats in pic #2)
6. Arabic Doritos and Aquafina.
7. What Second Cup looks like at the Mall of the Emirates!

dubai

Aaaand we are currently in Dubai. It is a miracle. We almost didn't make it. On Thursday afternoon we arrived at the airport to discover our flight to Munich had been cancelled, due to an "incident on the runway." Actually, pretty much every flight out of Heathrow that afternoon was cancelled. We eventually found out that this was the cause: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7194086.stm

Basically there was a plane crash and so 200 some-odd flights were cancelled. Really scary. Amazingly everyone on the crashed plane was okay. But this left us stuck in the airport in a massive lineup of people waiting to rebook on new flights. We waited for awhile, then suddenly a woman appeared asking if anyone was going to Munich. So we went with her, and it turned out that an earlier flight to Munich hadn't been cancelled, only very delayed, so they bumped us onto that plane. We were extremely lucky - most people stuck at Heathrow didn't get anywhere. Tiffany's Friday flight to Copenhagen got cancelled too - I have no idea if she's gotten there yet.

From the window of our plane, as it drove out to the runway, we could actually see the crashed plane. It was just lying flat on its stomach, with all the emergency slides in place and a million flashing emergency vehicles surrounding it. Very surreal.

Anyway, the rest of the journey after that was smooth. Connected in Munich, and arrived in Dubai Friday morning as planned. Dubai is... wow. A crazy place. Lots of old stuff, Arab culture, etc. mixed with insanely modern stuff, fancy hotels, huge buildings, etc. Today we saw, among other things: the world's soon-to-be tallest building in progress, the Burj-al-Arab (world's only "7 star hotel"), and Ski Dubai, the famous indoor ski hill in a mall. Micah and I did a crazy blitz tour of Dubai because we pretty much had only one day to see everything. It's all just... strange. Things are so lavish and it's like nothing is real. And then the culture is so different - there are no women! Well, there are, but very few. When we walk around outside it is all men. The majority of women that you do see are all tourists. Also new to me - in Muslim culture they pray 5 times a day - they have these very loud public prayers that they broadcast over loudspeakers. The first one is around 5:30am. So this morning I was woken up by this super loud chanting over a loudspeaker outside. Very different. But interesting. One great thing about Dubai: food is soooo cheap. I can get a falafel sandwich for like 75 cents Canadian. Mmmmm.

I am a bit anxious because tomorrow we fly to Bangladesh. I don't feel overly culture-shocked in Dubai because it is so modern, but Bangladesh... here we go. :)

london

We've been in London since Thursday. When our plane landed and was driving over to the docking area (what do you actually call that?) we drove past Iron Maiden's tour plane. Ooooh.

We're actually leaving for Dubai tomorrow, I've been a bit slow to update this week. We've done alot of sightseeing and shopping, the usual London stuff. We saw Phantom of the Opera. I've been gorging myself on cheese and onion sandwiches, and all the crisps and chocolate that I can't get back home. It's been a fun week, but I've been sort of bummed out because there were two people I really wanted to see while I was here, and neither worked out. So that depressed me more than it should have. I was also supposed to meet up with Jess, my old Ottawa roomie, and that didn't work out either. Urghhhh to all that.

We've been staying in a sort of sketchy hostel... well, sketchy is the wrong word, but I usually choose hostels of a slightly higher quality. Our room has 14 people in it, which might be okay except that I think 10 our of 14 at least are massive snorers and it's like a symphony of bullfrogs being crushed by airplanes landing. Tiffany has a cold and she's all congested and sleeping on the bunk underneath me so hers is loudest, haha. Another big negative to the hostel is the showers - not that I'm overly picky, cuz you know, it's a hostel, but there's very little in the way of space or privacy. Still, for all it's crappiness, I've gotten used to it and almost kind of like it. Almost.

Very much at random we bumped into Micah's cousin the other day (neither he nor his cousin knew the other was there) and so yesterday we went for lunch with her at a very fancy Chinese restaurant with a view of the London Bridge. I had a fortune cookie that said something about reality being a big hallucination. Tiffany's said "Keep your enemies close and your wallet closer." Good advice from a fortune cookie? Haha.

Anyway, Dubai tomorrow night, via Munich, so we arrive early Friday morning. It's going to be crazy. Will update more from there.

toronto

Very early Monday morning in the airport, I leaned over the check-in counter to put my backpack onto the conveyer belt thingy to be checked in. Unfortunately, I had not gone to sleep the night before and so my distance perception and motor skills were not where they should have been and I smashed my nose on the edge of the counter. My nose was red for half the day. I'm a moron.

Tonight was fun - I went for dinner and to see Taare Zameen Par with Shikha and Ghora. I have been waiting forever to see it, and it did not disappoint. I had a few issues with it, but ultimately it was a well-made film and exceptionally unique - not standard Bollywood fare at all. (Not that the standard is ever a bad thing, haha.) Also, the songs were excellent in the context of the movie. For those who have seen it - my favorites were Mera Jahan (because it's gorgeously shot) and Bum Bum Bole (reasons should be obvious).  Okay enough Hindi film talk, nobody wants to hear my blathering. 

The last three days have been mostly relaxing - just picking up lots of last minute things, and hanging out with Alex and Kim. We (myself, Tiffany, and Micah - travel buddy) fly out to England late tomorrow night (or tonight, I guess? It's almost 4:30am).  I should sleep. I just dozed off in the chair while staring at the computer screen. 

P.S. The freakishly warm weather in Toronto has been incredible. 

ottawa/montreal/halifax

I am commencing with this blog thing - finally! It tooks ages, I know. Last few weeks have been crazy. I spent my last few days in Ottawa frantically trying to get visas and book plane tickets, finish work, and see everyone I could. Somewhere in there was a house party which I barely survived.

On the 22nd, Julia and I left for Nova Scotia by train. Total travel time: 31 hours. Not so bad though - we had a sweet Montreal tour and poutine stopover (thanks Tas!) and I could plug my laptop in on the train. Which meant I could watch Bollywood. That made me ludicrously happy. I'm a dork.

I've been at home 2 weeks now, Christmas was low-key but good, New Year's was the same. Today is my last day in Nova Scotia - at the present time I am sitting in my bed, surrounded by mountains of stuff on the floor, and I haven't even attempted to think about packing yet. I might want to get on that.

Itinerary for next 2 months looks like this: Toronto (Jan. 7-10), London (Jan. 11-17), Dubai (Jan 18-19), Bangladesh (Jan. 20 - ?), India (Feb. ? - ?), back to Canada (early March-ish). We don't have a fixed route in Bangladesh/India... we're just going to wing it when we get there. That's probably poor planning, but hey. On the topic of India, here's something really random - Blogspot just introduced this feature that lets you type everything into the Hindi script - how convenient! Not that I am going to start blogging in Hindi, but I COULD, in theory. Good practice. Look! मैं तुम लोग से प्यार करती हूँ! Hilarious.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last two weeks. Christmas Eve it was gorgeous out so we went to the beach. We also went to Peggy's Cove last week, in the interest of being tourist-y with Julia. It looks like we're in the Arctic or something. The other pics are just random Christmas Eve and New Year's shots. (Apologies if the layout of the pics comes up wonky on your screen - I can't figure out the HTML to make this look decent for all screen resolutions.)

I will try to post pics from my travels as I go if I am able to upload them from wherever I happen to be. If I can't post pics, I promise to tell good stories. Nothing boring like "Today we saw the Taj Mahal. It was pretty. I got indigestion from some bad fruit." Well, maybe I'd still talk about indigestion. We'll see.

I fly to Toronto very very early tomorrow morning. I am sort of freaking out. That is all.