My school had a week off at the end of October, so Beckley, Sara and I took a trip down to the Sundarbans, and then explored the south-eastern part of Bangladesh. The Sundarbans is "the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world" (thanks wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundarbans). I don't know what halophytic means, but I saw the Sundarbans and they were beautiful! Actually, now I know what halophytic means, also thanks to wikipedia! The beauty extended beyond the visual and enveloped my eardrums. There are no cars! No rickshaws! no Buses! No people!
Our sundar-boat. I would apologize, but I'm not done yet.We flew from Dhaka to Jessore, then took a bus to Khulna, where we got on our boat. It took about 12 hours on the boat from Khulna to reach the Sundarbans.
Living in Dhaka has made me appreciate things that I probably wouldn't not consider particularly worthy of appreciating. The peace and quiet was more than worth traveling by plane, bus and boat to find. I am also now appreciating how creative I would have to be to keep myself occupied on long car rides, since I get nauseous if I read. We would have to play games like 20 questions and License-Plate Alphabet to keep ourselves sane. Some of you may have been lucky enough to be in the car with Colin on a trip from Michigan to Providence, in which he enacted all of human history in a coffee-fueled 20 minutes at 2am after twelve hours on the road. I've found that simply staring out the window is more than enough to keep me occupied on the roads even in the middle-of-nowhere (if there is such a place) in Bangladesh. However, I have developed some games for the road, just in case you don't want to go cold turkey on long drives in Bangladesh:
1) Count the number of seconds in which you cannot see one person. I don't think I have accumulated more than 120 seconds during my 4 months so far in Bangladesh (excluding the Sundarbans).
2) Score one point every time you see a full family (man, woman and child) on a motorcycle. One bonus point for each extra child and two extra points for adult relatives. I actually wish there were more motorcycles on the road because the traffic in Dhaka is so bad that this sentence has already become a cliche. Actually, I'll request a subway system while I'm at it, since the powers that be are probably reading this and are interested in enacting positive change for the citizens of their country.
Apparently Bangladeshis sometimes have psychological issues when they move West because there aren't enough people. Now that I think about it, Manhattan and it doesn't seem so crowded to me anymore. If I ever start compulsively getting on the F train to go to Jackson Heights at rush hour, then you'll know why.
Oh, back to the Sundarbans! They were beautiful! I saw some pretty birds and deer, I walked through the mud, and I swam in the Indian Ocean. Here are some pictures:
The mud-erbans, as I called the Sundarbans for about 24 hours before the joke got old. Okay, who am I kidding, that joke bombed big time.
Nothing like a nice walk in the mud.
The Indian Ocean! Cyclone Sidr did some serious damage to the Sundarbans, especially on the coastline.
Just cruisin' through some halophytic mangroves.
Near Khulna, we passed by this passenger boat. If you look carefully, the woman in the white Salwar Kameez is taking a picture of us. I wonder how long it will be before seeing foreigners in Bangladesh is not considered a picture-worthy event. In the meantime, I'm famous! The only appropriate way to respond to being photographed is to photograph right back, and that is how this picture was born.My adventures in Chittagong, Bandarban, and Rangmati coming soon....
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