Sylhet

Last Saturday I had nothing to do, so I started writing this nice, long informative post about my trip to Sylhet. I was planning on adding some pictures but when I went to get my camera it wasn't in my bag. I looked all over but I couldn't find it. My conclusion is that it fell out of my bag onto the luggage rack in the bus when I was getting a book out. This discovery put me in a bit of a funk and I no longer felt like blogging. I'm hoping to contact the bus company today, but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, I decided I owed you a post regardless so I'll recap some highlights of my trip.

Sylhet is in the north-east corner of Bangladesh. The countryside is quite pretty with nice rolling hills and expansive tea gardens. Other than here and Chittagong, Bangladesh is flat and boring as far as topography is concerned. After a 10 hour overnight bus ride, we arrived in Sylhet town. I made the mistake the previous night of not claiming a seat on the bus before joining the others at the tea stall, the result being I was stuck with one at the back behind the rear axle. While the bumps might have exhilarated me when I was in grade 5, my 20-year-old self was not pleased when the time came to sleep. I didn't get much of it.

We first checked out a tea garden. We saw how tea is processed as well as how rubber is made. Rubber has nothing to do with tea by the way, just the plantation had a small rubber making operation. In the afternoon we visited some burial sites of old Mughal conquerors. They are now pilgrimage sites for Muslims. It's interesting how that works. The remains of men who once conquered the Bangladeshi people by military force and converted them to Islam are now revered.

The next couple of days were spent visiting some local NGOs and national parks. The national parks were quite nice. One of them had a waterfall. I believe it is THE waterfall in Bangladesh. It was a pretty location. There would be a picture here, if that were possible. A quick note on litter. A while back I made a post on garbage. I commented that I understood the reasons for garbage being everywhere here. However, I thought it was gross that in the national parks there was still litter everywhere! People threw garbage into the waterfall. There were even signs stating "Do Not Litter". True there weren't any garbage cans, but I feel like the parks don't have the budget to hire people to empty them. It can't be too difficult to keep your trash in your pocket or bag and dispose of it outside the park. But I guess that's my Western bias again. I suppose if you consider that until maybe 30 years ago pretty much all trash produced in Bangladesh was decomposable, it makes sense that those habits of tossing waste haven't died yet.

On our trip we ate at hotels for all our meals. Hotels are small restaurants that can be found almost everywhere you go. It is amazing to me how cheap one can eat at a hotel. Breakfast of two naan, dal, an egg and tea is 38 taka (60 cents). Lunch or supper consisting of rice, dal, meat, vegetable curry and tea goes for 90 taka ($1.25). Fish is even cheaper. One can eat very well for a whole day on $3.50.

Overall it was a good trip. I got to see another part of the country and a lot of the REAP staff did too. I was surprised how many of my co-workers had never been to Sylhet. Most of them are in their 30s and 40s and have lived in Bangladesh their whole life. Well that's it for now.

Ben