Eid-ul-Azha

So I am back in Dhaka after many weeks of travel! I will post pictures and thoughts from my adventures in other parts of Asia soon. But first, Eid-ul-Azha, which happened in the middle of December.

Eid-ul-Azha is a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son. Muslims around the world celebrate this festival and in Muslim countries, families with money will purchase animals to sacrifice. Traditionally, one third of the meat is used as a meal for the owners of the animal, one third of the meat is distributed to other family, and one third of the meat is given to those less fortunate.

In middle eastern countries, the animal sacrifice is apparently done indoors, in the garage or behind a fence. In Bangladesh, the families have the sacrifice right on the street. In middle eastern countries, the animal of choice for sacrifice is sheep. In Bangladesh, they sacrifice cows. You can also purchase goats, and the unreasonably rich families import camels from abroad. Think about that for a second. Eid in Dhaka is a holiday where they kill cows on the streets. Thousands and thousands of cows! In the couple of weeks leading up to this event, huge markets are set up to sell animals for sacrifice.

Here are some cows being shipped into Dhaka. Apparently many are illegally imported from India, where there is a surplus due to the whole sacred cow thing.

A cow market about three blocks from my apartment.

The animals are then tied up in front of the houses, awaiting the day of slaughter. Some people like to purchase expensive cars to show off their wealth, while others wear expensive jewelry. Well, the Bangladeshis are no different, but they also purchase beautiful animals and tie them up outside their houses to show off before they kill them. When I was walking around to check out my neighborhood-turned-temporary-petting-zoo, some of the neighbors would point to their collection of animals and tell me how much they spent on sacrificial cows. Some of them spent thousands of U.S. dollars on cows!!

My friend Iftekar and his daughter Fatima posing in front of the camel that everyone was talking about in Gulshan.

Beautiful white cows down the block from where I live. These probably cost at least $2,000 each.

Well on the day of Eid-ul-Azha, the streets of Dhaka run red with blood, and I am not joking. It amazes me that I have never heard of this event before, but I suppose that since most Muslim countries don't have sacrifices on the street, the spectacle hasn't been as widely publicized. Whatever the reason, this leads me to believe that there are many more crazy things that happen in the world that I don't even know exist yet.

Some people stay indoors, close their windowshades, cover their eyes and ears and wait for Eid to pass. I imagine it is not a fun day for Hindus. However, I had no intention of missing the action, so I went with my friends Sara and Jason downtown to Old Dhaka. The residents of Old Dhaka might not have as much money, but they are proud of what they've got, and they love to show off their cows, dead or alive.

We drove down a little after sunrise, and found a cow market that was trying to get rid of their remaining cows. They don't really speak English down in Old Dhaka, so I needed to find out how to say "cow sacrifice" in Bangla. I mimed slitting my throat, and then asked how to say that. After a minute of clarification, I emerged with an important word, which probably roughly translates as "to slaughter". Old Dhaka was then subjected to three hours of Jimmy, Sara, and Jason, in which I asked questions like "where will cows be slaughtered?" and "can you bring me to a cow slaughter which is happening soon?" and the occasional "I want to see cow blood".

Because we had arrived so early, it was quiet, and we thought we might have missed out on all of the sacrifices. In about twenty minutes, we managed to see our first sacrifice, and then things got serious. The method of killing the cow is basically to cut the aorta and the windpipe without cutting the spinal cord, so the heart is still beating and pumping out blood for another four or five minutes. I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason I think that they want to get as much blood out of the animal as possible before it dies. I would say that after seeing twenty-five cows being sacrificed, the novelty wore off a little bit. For about an hour, we were whisked through the alleyways by the locals. Everyone wanted us to see their cow being sacrificed, and how can you say no when someone asks if you will watch them kill a cow?

I will now post some pictures for your consideration. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SEEING ANIMALS BEING KILLED OR BLOOD OR ANIMALS LEAKING BLOOD OR ANY COMBINATION OF THESE THINGS, YOU WILL NOT BE SCROLLING ANY FARTHER DOWN. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!




SERIOUSLY, LAST CHANCE. DID YOU READ MY WARNING??

Cutting the neck of the cow. You can see the blood streaming out of the aorta!

The streets run red...

They were very proud of their used knives. Haha, its all fun and games! How could anything possibly go wrong...??

Well, it used to be fun and games, and now Jason is holding a warm, bloody knife. He is not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Some of these kids were uncomfortably immature about dead cows. I'm not even really sure how to explain that, except by showing pictures of the kids pretending to lick cow blood.

These guys managed to dismantle an entire cow in about five minutes.

Later in the day, the poor travel around in big groups with bags, where they collect meat being handed out by the rich families, aka Trick or Meat. This street is usually pretty quiet.

I got some people to show me their bags. They were so excited!

This is where Eid differs slightly from Halloween.

The Watch Goes International

Hello from Hangzhou! Last thursday I left Bangladesh for the first time since the end of July. My school has a winter break until early January, so I'll be traveling around China for the next three weeks. I've spent the last couple of days with Ian, David, Nate, and Pei, and now Nate and I are about to head off to Shaoxing and Anchang while some of our buddies actually get some work done. Jin arrives later this week, and we might head down to check out his village. David flies back to the states tomorrow, and Confucious says "it is good that you saw David before he left Asia."

Pictures and stories from China will appear as permitted by internet availability. I am pleasantly surprised by the prevalance of internet here, so there may be some hope! I actually feel more inundated by Christmas music and advertising here than I ever thought possible here. If you hear a christmas classic dunked in saccharine reggae beats and sung by a Chinese man, think of me. And Merry Christmas!

Bandarban and Rangamati

The final destination on our trip was the Chittagong Hill tracts, a hilly area in the south-eastern part of Bangladesh right on the Burmese border.

Our car, parked in the hill tracts.

This section of Bangladesh is peculiar not just for its large hills, but also for its people. An overwhelming majority of the people in Bangladesh are ethnically Bengali, with a small minority of Biharis. However, in the Hill Tracts there are many different tribal groups who look like they should be from south-east asia. They have their own style of dress, and they don't seem to fit in with the rest of Bangladesh.

We visited Bandarban and Rangamati, and as you drive along the main road in Bandarban, there are signs describing the different tribal groups. Each sign has a man and a woman in traditional dress, and there is info as if we were driving through an open-air museum ("The Chakma tribe is known for their fierce warrior traditions and unique hunting style..."). We had a local kid take us on a long walk to through the hills in Bandarban, and we saw lots of green.


And as we walked, we ran into some tribal peoples actually trying to get stuff done while the foreigners come and cause a commotion. Hardly any of them spoke any Bangla (they have their own tribal languages) which caught me by surprise. I've become so used to having short conversations with villagers that I felt more uncomfortable than other village visits. Being able to chat always makes me feel less like a spectator, and those strange museum-like signs back on the road didn't help me feel at ease. All we could do was try to gather kids together to take pictures.

Our guide Onik (who was probably in his early 20's) said "ohh I haven't met that girl before." It is our sincere hope that we will be invited to the wedding, because the rest of our trek through the hills included not-so-subtle hints that he has to lock that down asap.

One of the most peculiar things about the Chittagong Hill Tracts is that they are a little mysterious, even to some people who live in Bangladesh. There are apparently underground independence movements, which makes sense to me, since the Hill Tracts have almost nothing in common with the rest of the country. There have been a number of reports of foreigners being held hostage in the past few years. Because of this, the government treats the Hill Tracts as a high security zone, and we had to call the district commisioners in advance for each area we were traveling to in order to gain permission. There are conspiracy theories, though, which claim that the government is trying to prevent development in the region in order to quietly smother the tribal people. The Hill Tracts is undoubtedly one of the most interesting places in Bangladesh, but fear about safety is preventing all but the bravest (or craziest) foreigners from seeing it. The U.S. Department of State has this to say about the Hill Tracts:

"U.S. citizens are advised against traveling to the Khagrachari, Rangamati and Bandarban Hill Tracts districts (collectively known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts) due to kidnappings and other security incidents, including those involving foreign nationals. Foreigners traveling in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are required to register with local authorities. ... Individuals who choose to visit these districts are urged to excercise extreme caution."

In addition to the "Shogotom!" (Welcome!) signs that could be seen as we crossed town borders, we also ran into signs like this about six times during our two days in the Hill Tracts:


We also stopped at a Buddhist temple on the top of a hill outside of the Bandarban town. The temple wasn't open yet since we had arrived so early in the morning, but a monk was chillin' near the gate and was more than happy to let us take a look.

Bang a Chittagong

We spent a day seeing all we could see in Chittagong. Since we had come fresh from three months in Dhaka without any vacations, our enthusiastic exclamations that "there are slightly less rickshaws and slightly more autorickshaws here!" and "there are some hills!" seem rather mundane in retrospect. Regardless, we had just encountered exciting new territory, and we soaked it up like the Buriganga in June (ba-dam-ching).

The High Court of Chittagong - this is not the only famous pink building in Bangladesh, a fact which I am curiously not surprised to learn

The roads are slightly wider in Chittagong!

Since Chittagong is the major port city of Bangladesh, we went to check out some of the docks. We ended up just walking down towards the river at a loading dock. I think we were the only non-employees anywhere near the dock, but thankfully people seem to be very nice about foreigners bumbling through their place of work.

This picture was taken as I narrowly avoiding being rolled over by something really big.

The small dock in Chittagong we visited.

Then our driver tried to take us to a ship-breaking yard. Some of you may have read about the ship-breaking yards in Chittagong. Commercial vessels are brought to Chittagong where they are broken apart for scraps BY HAND. These yards got some really negative international press about four years ago because of the bad working conditions. As you drive into Chittagong, there are stores along the road where you can buy anything you could imagine from a ship, from kitchenware to fuel tanks to spiral staircases. As we drove down to the yard, we found ourselves in front of large gate and some angry men staring at us. The word on the street is that its incredibly difficult to see them now, because managers don't want to deal with more foreigners spreading the word about whatever goes on inside.

Our driver, in case I have not sung his praises enough, managed to convince the manager of the big ship-breaking yard to let us in. I can only speculate as to what he said, but after about 10 minutes with our driver they were suddenly very nice to us. Maybe its best that we never know.

Absolutely no pictures were allowed, but Sara distracted the manager, our tour guide, with her many charms while we did our best to furtively document our adventure.

We walked down the beach at sunset, flanked by full-size beached commercial transport ships. Beautiful!

The Road To Chittagong is Mostly Paved

Beckley, Sara, and I, after returning from the Sundarbans, took a five-day adventure towards south-eastern Bangladesh. We headed towards Chittagong, the second largest city in Bangladesh. The Dhaka Trunk Road, connecting Dhaka and Chittagong, is the busiest intercity road in the country, since Chittagong is the largest port city. We hired a driver from the school to drive our car, because Beckley and I are crazy enough to drive around Dhaka, but no way are we going to drive on the highways outside of Dhaka. We made a special request for Kalam, our favorite driver, and he cancelled his holiday plans just to drive for us. We love Kalam because he is everything good about Bangladeshis. More than that, we love Kalam because he remained absolutely non-plussed after unceremoniously plowing through a flying raven three hours into our journey.

The Dhaka Trunk Road goes right along Bangladesh's eastern border with India, and I got unreasonably excited at the sight of the slightest amount of sloped terrain. I hadn't walked up or down a hill in three months. After driving for about 6 hours, Kalam offered to take us on a detour. We stopped at a Hindu temple at the base of the mountains, and then learned that there were a couple of other temples at the top. Well, once you've climbed 100 steps, you might as well climb the other 900, and that is how we climbed a mountain in Bangladesh.

The view from about halfway up. Not there yet!

We were even more of a spectacle than usual, and at some points there were so many people crowding around us that a simple "Shobai ekhane ashun" (everyone come here!) was all that was necessary to create a picture like this:


My Dad can only dream of wielding this sort of influence over my cousins during family picture time. After almost two hours of climbing, we made it to the top!

We made it!!

Completely flat Bangladesh in the distance. The Indian border is right behind me.

Just some guys following us back down the mountain.

My camera ran out of batteries right at the top of the hill, which means I don't have pictures of the next two hours. Within these two hours, we managed to be invited to a vegetarian meal with the head gurus of a Hindu study center at the base of the mountain, immediately followed by an invitation to the ritual Hindu sacrifice of two goats, which we witnessed from less than six feet away. I can't be sure, but I suspect that the organization who invited us to vegetarian lunch is not directly affiliated with the organization in charge of the goat sacrifice. Before leaving, an old hindu woman from the temple came over and gave each of us a hug as if we were her long-lost grandchildren. I'm not gonna lie, that was a good hug.

We then continued the eight hour journey to Chittagong, and arrived in the late afternoon. We had no lodging planned ahead of time, so we checked out suggestions from Kalam, who eventually brought us to a hotel which happens to be owned by Kumar Biswajit, our favorite Bangladeshi pop singer from the 90's. The genesis of our love for Kumar Biswajit is unfortunately an entire story unto itself. Needless to say, the furnishings in the hotel room were primarily made of a pink satin material, but we expected nothing less of Kumar himself. All of this for less than ten dollars per person. How did we manage such a cheap rate? My conversation with the concierge went something like this:

Me: How much will it be for a room with three single beds?
Conceierge: [gives a price]
Me: Oh okay that sounds good.
Concierge: Sir, I am pleased to say that I can offer you a 30% discount on the room for the duration of your stay.
Me: That sounds great.
Concierge: How long do you plan to stay in Chittagong?
Me: Tonight and tomorrow night.
Concierge (after checking one of our passports): Sir, I am pleased to say that I am offering you an additional 10% off for first-time customers.

My bargaining skills are apparently so advanced that I don't even have to say anything to receive discounts.

More about Chittagong soon!

The Sundarbans

AAhhhhh Sunrise in the Sundarbans OWWW MY EYES!!!


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....

Since Forever

Oh my gosh it has been forever since I have updated this blog. I suspect that the length of my average post was completely unsustainable. Let's try something new: short posts!

Welcome to Dhaka! My travels on an October weekend:

Near Dhaka University. The greenest part of the city by far.

There are people EVERYWHERE, even in the middle of fields. These ice cream stands actually had customers every ten minutes.

We met 10 people. 15 Million to go.