Bangladesh: A few fragments

So, finally I’ve found a spare hour or two to share some initial impressions of Bangladesh. I’ve been here for two weeks now. Which is not a very long time. At any rate, not enough to really feel like I know enough about the country to write engaged socio-political commentary, like I might dare to about Ukraine or Russia. Nor has the last two weeks been in any way a tourist trip (for those of you who are yet to experience the joys of frequent business travel, no, it doesn’t generally involve spending the whole day on the beach). In fact, I’ve managed to do absolutely nothing touristy whatsoever so far, and haven’t seen the ‘Old City’ in Dhaka, which is meant to be the most interesting bit…the old colonial buildings, the winding alleys, the ‘Hindu’ street, the bustling river, the Armenian church (yes, those Armenians really do get everywhere) – no, I’ve not seen any of it yet. I’m not going for the sympathy vote, but honestly, I’ve been too busy.

In fact, the only time I have had to think over the last couple of weeks have been in the taxi rides home each evening (admittedly, I also have taxi rides in the morning, but I’m not a morning person and so not much thinking goes on as I’m heading into town). Two of the next three posts are the product of these journeys home. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the first one is about transport, while the second is an observation from my ride home. There are some more serious posts to come, but they’ll probably have to wait a while. I expected to be have time to write them in the last few days, but unfortunately I got a rather nasty stomach bug (I guess that was close to inevitable), so I’ve not opened my computer for more than 10 minutes in the last couple of days and today I’m just posting what I’d already managed to write…