It is interesting moving to Dhaka to live here, verses coming for a visit. Usually, I go to foreign countries for vacation and try to cram as much as possible into what little time I have (because I am always running out of time!). This has not been the case so far for Dhaka. Instead of running from one site to the next, I have been enjoying time hanging out with friends (yes, I have friends!) and slowly getting to know my new city.
This past Wednesday was my first real site-seeing day. BLI (Bangla Language Insitute) organized a field trip to Purano Dhaka or Old Dhaka. Purano Dhaka is made up of narrow winding streets, interesting architecture and some good tourist attractions. So at 9am, the only other BLI student this semester (also a Fulbrighter) and I loaded into the van with our entourage, which included a driver, an administrative assistant, and two teachers. Needless to say, we had a wealth of knowledge to tap into, which was definitely nice when we got into a major traffic jam shortly after leaving. It took us about 2 hrs to travel less than 8 miles to our destination, but luckily traffic is still entertaining to me.
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| Traffic guard. Old Dhaka. |
The two major sites we saw were Ahsan Manzil and Lalbagh fort. Ahsan Manzil, also known as the pink palace, was originally a government and trading center but was later sold to the Dhaka Nawab family in the mid-19th century and converted into their residence. When the last Nawab died, Ahsan Manzil fell into direspear, but in the mid 80’s, it was restored and turned into a museum.
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| Ahsan Manzil, Old Dhaka. |
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| Me at Ahsan Manzil, Old Dhaka. |
Lalbagh fort contains three buildings, a mosque, the govenor’s residence and a tomb, all surrounded by the fort. Construction of the fort began in 1878, but was never finished.
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| Lalbagh, Old Dhaka. |
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| Mosque at Lalbagh, Old Dhaka. |
That ends my formal touring of Dhaka for now. This weekend, however, I did quite a bit more exploring. I found Old Dhaka really interesting and wanted to go back down there to see a bit more, so three friends (including my language partner) and I headed back down on Friday. Friday is actually a great day traveling around Dhaka because traffic is really light. This is because Friday is sort of like our Sunday. Generally, people stay home on Friday with their family and only in the middle of the day do you have to be careful of traffic because that is when men will head to the mosque for prayer.
So, without much trouble the four of us got down to old Dhaka. This time, though, we decided to go to Sadarghat, a large boat terminal, and take a boat down the Buriganga river. Here are some photos of what we saw from the river:
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| My language partner and I on the boat. |
Our destination was a char (pronounced chore), which is a specific type of island. Chars are very vulnerable to flooding, causing the islands to shift and change a lot. Usually, extremely impoverished people live on chars and because the chars are always changing, inhabitants have to resettle fairly often. Because they are not connected to the mainland, chars get very few foreign visitors. So, as we walked around, a crowd slowly grew around us. The people were very friendly and curious as to why we were there and where we came from. Things got really fun, though, when we decided to stop for cha at a little shop. Lots of kids came over to us and asked us why our hair was blonde (three of us have varying shades of blonde hair) and were extremely excited to have their picture taken (as long as we showed them their photo after). The kids were so great and interested in our cameras, that we asked them if they wanted to try taking their own pictures. At first they were a little shy and said no, but after we asked them if they were sure, they turned into excellent photographers.
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| Curious women on the Char. |
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| Sitting down for cha and drawing lots of attention. |
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| Teaching the kids how to take a picture. |
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| A natural. |
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| A photo of me taken by one of the kids. |
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| Goodbye! |
After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to old Dhaka and made our way up to Baridhara. The last thing I will share for this post was the incredible block printing shops I found (well actually was shown) in New Market. Yes, I went back down to New Market on Saturday morning. Not that I actually needed to buy anything, but more so because it is so big and there is so much going on there that you could go 100 times and still not have seen everything.
This time, I saw the block printers. On the third or fourth floor, in an open air building, there is a whole side devoted to block printing. There are tons of blocks, paints, colors, sparkles and fabrics and the printers create the most gorgeous designs I have seen so far in Dhaka. There is just one straight walkway flanked with shop after shop of block printers creating gorgeous artwork. The air smells of paint and the block printers show off their work with hanging salwar kameez, saris, and shawls for passerbys to envy. This was truly an awesome place to see and is another reason why I am happy to be living in Dhaka.
I am falling in love with your adventure! Missing you tons and hoping that you bring me back part of this beautiful world!
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