I've been to... with Matthew - Bangladesh

It's time for another guest post from Matthew.

I 've been to... Bangladesh.

In 2006, I signed up for a tour through Explore! Worldwide that promised to take us to many of India’s holiest places, travelling wherever possible by train.  The trip is still available and now starts in Kolkata, but back in 2006 the trip started in Bangladesh.  Armed with a ticket and a visa, I boarded a plane bound for Dhaka, apprehensive about what I would experience but excited to see a place that most people know little about.

 Bangladesh sits at the mouth of the Ganges delta, so there is a lot of water.

Firstly, a little history which helps explain why Explore’s tour now starts in Kolkata.  The Bengal region had been part of the British Raj, but as a result of the 1947 partition of the region, the Western portion of Bengal joined India, with the majority Muslim Eastern part becoming East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan).  West Pakistan ruled from Islamabad, 1,600 miles away with about 1,000 miles of Indian territory in between.

East Pakistan had a larger population and was economically more significant than the West, so the population became unhappy with this arrangement and a progressively more violent independence struggle rumbled on for 20 years.  The situation came to a head in 1971 with a 9 month war which led to Bangladeshi independence.  Through the conflict, the occupying Pakistani army committed a number of atrocities, including the murder of between 300,000 and 3 million civilians (the number depends on who you talk to – the Bangladeshis are adamant it’s the higher number).

 

Quite a slogan to build a campaign around

Recently the country has held a number of war crime trials, which has unsettled the country and has made it a less attractive tourist destination.  But even in 2006, tourism was very limited and seeing a visitor was a novel experience for most Bangladeshis.  My strongest memory was of a crowd gathering to watch us whenever we stopped.  The concept of privacy is very different in that part of the world, so staring (and being stared at) was nothing unusual for the locals, no matter how uncomfortable it made us feel.

 

Look!  Tourists!

We stopped at some remote places as we travelled through the country, and sizable crowds would often gather.  We were escorted by the military, which was intended to make us feel at ease, but actually served to further highlight where we were and as the troops tended to fan out ahead of us, where we were going.  A few troubled countries with tourist industries tend to do this and it’s never been clear to me that an armed escort really helps.

 

Our escorts.  The lowest quality photo we’ve ever posted, but you get the idea.

So what is there to see in Bangladesh?  To be honest, not much.  During colonial times, it was a relatively unimportant outpost, so didn’t really benefit from the investment in great public works that more “important” colonial cities received.  The underdeveloped economy lacks the wealth to support a great infrastructure.

Very pleasant

There are some (lower scale) colonial gems to explore, such as Dhaka University, but the post-independence monuments tend to feature large quantities of concrete in unusual geometric formations.  As an example, the Jatiyo Sriti Shoudho (the National Martyrs' Memorial) is located in a small town around 30 miles outside Dhaka, which makes the country’s most interesting monument actually quite difficult to visit.

 

The National Martyrs' Memorial

The most interesting thing about Bangladesh is undoubtedly its people.  Bangladesh is the world’s 8^th most populous country, with over 150 million people crammed into a country smaller than Illinois.  So there are a lot of people living in extremely close proximity, and it’s even more cramped than it might sound as around 20% of the country is either waterway or uninhabitable swampland.

 

Travelling by water is a very developed industry

There’s a resilience to the population that you can only really understand by visiting.  We joke about “first world problems” - a quick scan of my Facebook news feed would suggest that the greatest challenge my “first world” friends face is how to complete that tricky level on Candy Crush.  Your perspective shifts when you read that 30 million Bangladeshis lost their homes during the flooding of 1998, which left two thirds of the country underwater.  The average income of the 150 million Bangladeshis is just over US $1,000.

The world is a fascinating place and a visit to Bangladesh will certainly enhance your understanding of it complexity.

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