Remember pink people on rickshaws? Like here
Well, those are actors from Bengali movies. On Bengali New Years these pink faces participate in the parade or you can just buy them in the store. Together with the rickshaw bench 😉
BANG-BANG! ladesh
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Monthly Archives: May 2015
Russians everywhere
Guess what I found visiting one of the malls? Russian famous antivirus! in Dhaka! wow!
Old Dhaka. Again x3
So far we covered hinduism and islam. Didn’t I say before that Old Dhaka is amazing? Well, they even have an Armenian church here. There used to be a big group of Armenians living here, but there aren’t any anymore. There is still a church and usually it is closed to visitors, but not when you have a local guide and a few takas.
The wall by the church and the view from the ou
And here we are inside
This is a henna tree
There are plenty of mango trees in the church garden. The season comes in about 2 weeks, but we tried a small one (a different kind than on the picture) and to me it was super ready!
The man who is looking after the church asked us where we were from and when I said that I was Russian he got very excited! Apparently, there is an Armenian man working at the Russian embassy (from what I understood) and he comes to the church every Friday when he is in Dhaka (not that Friday). He was so nice, so sweet and offered us some drinks and snacks, gave mangos and invited to come and visit him anytime. It was one of those rare cases, when being Russian actually helped 😉 I am definitely going back to visit him and chill at the church garden with mangos! And this is the interior and my new friend!
As we were three girls, we agreed that going to the fabric market is very important and inevitable 🙂 This pictures shows a tiny little fraction of fabrics you can find there (and it is on the weekend, so many places were closed!!)
I bought some souvenirs. 3 piece is the most common women’s wear (pants, dress and scarf) and they sell it usually like on the picture and then a lady should take it to the tailor and get it fitted. Beautiful, isn’t it?
And the last stop of our tour — the main Dhaka attraction — the Pink Palace
Inside there is a museum in a sad condition. Apparently you cannot take pictures there (and fairly speaking, there is not much to take pictures of), but before I was told this I took the pictures of how the books are stored
How the locals enjoy the paintings
And a couple of portraits. It was hard to choose which one of them had the most different right and left sides of the face.
Leaving the palace I saw these friend posing in front of the bush one after another. Could only take a picture of one guy, was too busy laughing when I saw it!
At the end of the tour it started to rain. A lot!
We got soaked, caught a CNG and drove to our part of Dhaka. CNG died a few times before we finally got home, I managed to take a picture of the flooded street (which totally reminded me of the everlasting puddle I had in front of our first apartment)
And then there were a thunderstorm, heavy rain and lightenings for the next few hours. Very refreshing!
Old Dhaka. Again. And again
Next stop was ship a breaking/painting yard
On our way to a slam I took a picture of a local barber
There was a wedding on the way as well and people were cooking on the street
It is very common here to buy cigarets by one and our guide has been constantly stopping by the little shops to buy them. At one of them I saw a lighter on a thread, very smart 🙂
Need some garlic, ginger or chilis? Here they are
Hanging out with the slum kids while drinking cha (black tea mixed with sweet condensed milk)
There was also another wedding and these kids got so colourful because of it.
Getting back on the boat, that is what the shore is like
Spice market again! Have been there before, but it is still very interesting
At that point we got off the boat and needed to take some land transport. This is what we got!
And I also decided to give it a try! look at the girls’ scared faced 🙂
In the next place decorations for rickshaws were created
Because Friday is a day off, everybody was just chilling out and these guys were playing the game. Apparently, for participation you should give 500 taka (which is a lot!) and then the winner gets all the money!
Right outside this workshop there was a big Bangladeshi flag and we decided to take a picture inviting everybody around us to join
The Hindu temple was our next stop
But it is a muslim country, remember? So we “visited” a very pretty mosque as well
Of course we couldn’t get in, so here is a picture of the guys that was sitting outside selling some fish (I guess it was very small eel)
The day was long and the tour covered a lot of amazing places, so more to come tomorrow!
Old Dhaka. Again
Old Dhaka is amazing. I don’t know enough proper English words to describe it, but I love going there again and again.
This time we got on another tour with a guide, because, like I said before, it is impossible to navigate there on your own.
Our first step was the place where plastic is being sorted. Did you ever wonder how the little bits of everywhere’s plastic are being sorted and recycled? Well, here they do everything manually. Get the plastic-sort it by colour-wash it in the river-put in the sacks-sacks are sold back to China (where most of this plastic come from in first place). One sack is worth 5000 taka, which is about 55 euros.
Below the guy is showing us a plastic bag handle and a marker cap.
I made a friend
And the colours are great
Right by this sorting “facility” women are sorting different kind of plastic
What do kind do there? Well, they swim
From the river the plastic sorting place looks like this
From the boat we could also see the laundry, where local hotels’ and hospital’s (that is in the near) sheets and being washed. In the river.
I wonder how they are still that white. Chemistry is a great science.
A couple of views on the way
We got off the boat on the other side of the river, the part of Dhaka, that is called South Dhaka. Living in South Dhaka is much cheaper that in the Old Dhaka, so people rent houses apartments there and then commute to the Old Dhaka every day. It is very common that in the 3 room (2 bedroom) apartment live three families, each in every room.
On the street we saw a group of young guys listening to somebody with a great interest. We asked our guide what it was all about. Apparently, the man was selling some “medicine” for sexual potential.
Remember that everybody is commuting with boats? Well, this is a boat taxi queue
Here is a beautiful view
And this is what I was standing on when taking this picture. Feels like walking on a soft carpet
The next stop was a garment factory. These are two 7 storey factories
This is a local garment “factory”. Even though it is an official day off, they still come to work for a few hours to make some extra money. The boy working on a sewing machine earns the most.
This is the manager’s “office” (our guide is sitting in his chair). His portrait is on the wall, by the way.
When we were leaving we saw people sleeping right there in terrible conditions. These factories work for the local market and there are no strict requirements for them to comply with any regulations. So they don’t.
Outside the factory we saw this guy. He was attracting more people and later there was supposed to be a fight between the snake and this little guy (don’t know his name). Although that is not the whole attraction. After that the man will start selling his “medicine”. Nice marketing.
A few pictures on the way to our next stop
More great pictures and garbage views tomorrow! 😉
Young coconut
This is how you carry a young coconut home 🙂
A very short wedding visit
Last week one of our drivers came over to our place and personally invited each of us to come over to his son’s wedding.
As you can imagine, I got very excited! Little did I know.
There are at least 3 parts of every wedding in Bangladesh — common big party, bride’s part and groom’s party. I call it ‘party’, but only the first one can be somewhat close to it (I don’t know, I haven’t been to the first one).
Sharee is a traditional wear for this kind of events, so I decided to rock the one I had for the New Year. This is one of my house mates and me!
When we came, we were invited to have some food. At that time it was about 2pm.
The food was: rice, chicken curry, beef curry, lemons to all of it, cucumbers/tomatoes, some very sour drink (made of herbs and fermented) to help your digestion, and see the orange rice? this is dessert
We were given cutlery, but of course the locals eat with their right hand.
This is the apartment where 3 families live.We were sitting in the living room, and a son of one of the families is sleeping there. On the wall is the poster he got for his birthday. Unfortunately I couldn’t take more pictures, but got a picture of a toilet 🙂
Next we went to meet the bride. She looked scared and sad the whole time. I got a bit concerned about that, considering especially that it was her second time meeting her future husband’s family. And that she was from the village and he was from the city.
And after that we were apparently supposed to go home. That was it! That was the bride’s “party”. But luckily my sharee decided to unwrap.. Well, yes it was a bit embarrassing, because I was walking out of the apartment and felt how I was loosing my sharee and was being left just in my shorts. So all the ladies that were in that room run after me and brought me back to the apartment and rewrapped me in it.
Here it is necessary to mentioned, that I was doing everything totally wrong. First, you are supposed to wear a special skirt and a special top with your sharee. Since I didn’t have any of it I was just wearing shorts and the top I had. And second, like I was told later by my local friends, my sharee was only good to go to a park with a boyfriend, but far from being good enough for a wedding. So yeah, ignorance saved me from being embarrassed even more!
But it was the best part of the wedding. The ladies were super nice and sweet and helpful and didn’t even laugh at my shorts (although I believe the stories will be told…)
Do you see how much better this sharee fits? heh..
This is our driver’s wife
And this it the room where I was rewrapped and that was decorated to welcome the new weds!
As a final shot — the sharee I did myself and the one done by the local ladies
Ladies definitely knew what they were doing!
Hindu street
Most of the population in Bangladesh is muslim, but there are some Hindu people as well. Not as much as there used to be, but still some.
In Old Dhaka there is a Hindu street and last weekend I went there to get some shell bangles, because I read that they are being done here as well.
On the way to the store we witnesses Hindu pray
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxl95lCWL-U
And then was wondering from one store to another trying to find a good deal. Apparently, non of those bangles are being done in Bangladesh, but they are from Sri Lanka.
I still liked them and got a few from this guy
There were a few people hanging out at the store, like this guy for example
Look at his rings
They all are somehow connected to astrology, I wouldn’t know a thing about it, but I liked the one with a pearl 😉