We took a motor-rickshaw, or puk-puk, or trike taxi, to the old fort of Lalbagh – we had discovered beforehand how much the trip should cost + paid the man accordingly, but he still bitched. Luckily, we have an unanswerable weapon: we can simply walk away. The fort was impressive, standing at the centre of a large grassed area, which in turn was surrounded by a high wall. Then we discovered that the fort itself was a broken-down building tucked away in one corner of the compound, and the building we had admired so much was, in fact, a tomb. Nonetheless, the whole complex formed an entity, + as such, was pleasant + peaceful, in marked contrast to the chaos out on the street, a seething mass of marauding rickshaw-drivers, pedestrians, trucks, cars, +, just at the moment, cows. This particular festival involves wholesale slaughter of the beasts, so there are an awful lot of them on the move, since every family that can afford one has to buy one.
When we came out, we wandered for a while thro’ the streets, but had to make sure we weren’t trampled by any of the beribboned + garlanded animals. Most of the time they were recalcitrant – understandably so – but every so often one would make a bid for freedom + take off, with the man who had previously been pulling or pushing now hanging desperately onto a rope or a tail. We were trying to make our way down to the waterfront, but when we missed our way once + took a wrong turning, we were taken in hand by a local guy, + taken back to his seed store, + given tea. That was Abdul (tho’ I spent most if the time talking politics with his brother.) He set us back on the right road – for a few awful moments it appeared as tho’ he were going to be our guide for the entire afternoon – we would very soon have run out of things to say, I fear – but he obviously thought better of the idea.
It wasn’t very long, however, before we ran into another person equally willing to help. We asked a young man the way to the Star mosque, he started to show us, then decided to offer us tea at his house first. It was, as usual, very strong, very milky, very sweet. I like it, but I have to forget it’s tea. Our friend, named Shahni, was friendly + amiable, but we were disturbed when he asked if we could help him to get to England. So long as it doesn’t involve money, sure. We replied that we certainly would if we could. Shahni took us to the Star Mosque, but left us there. I nearly always am soon bored by these chance encounters; it has just occurred to me that maybe the chance encounters are as well.
We spent some time wandering around the docks area + the nearby market, but eventually the crowds got to me + I wasn’t enjoying myself any more – especially after narrowly avoiding being run down 3 times – + we caught a rickshaw back. We lunched on some of Bangladesh’s popular snacks: singara – a deep-fried pastry ball filled with mashed potato + a little spice + onion; kabab – a sort of small rissole; + another one, triangular, with puff pastry – I can’t remember the name. Then finished the meal off with doi, a sort of sweet fermented curd.
The rain came again to imprison us for the afternoon, but we emerged eventually, + were, despite our lunch, absolutely ravenous. It turned out to be a near disaster. We plodded thro’ the rain all the way down to near the Sheraton to find a new place to eat, but found nothing there, so walked back. Then, to our dismay, we discovered that all the restaurants were closing early for the holiday. There began a frantic search for somewhere still open. We were also a little pressed for time, as we’d decided to take the train to Chittagong tonight. We did eventually find somewhere, of course, + were served quite a respectable meal. We also had enough time to listen to Sports Report on the BBC before we had to leave.
We left for the stn carrying both our bags with us. We had intended to leave one, containing primarily our Burmese handicrafts, behind, but after much thought we reckoned that the staff at the Blue Nile were simply too slack to be entrusted with anything. The stn came as a pleasant surprise, a modern, attractive, + above all clean building – the atmosphere inside was of bright + cheery reverence, like the best modern churches + mosques. Despite its surface modernity tho’, it was old-fashioned enough for our fellow-passengers to stand + stare at us. We were also plagued by beggars – this is our first real sight of that side of Asia. There was a bit of a mix-up over our tickets, when the clerk must have misheard me + given me tickets for the wrong place, but we sorted that out in the end, + went thro’ to take our place on the platform. The whole process was making me nervous – I’d rather hoped we’d escaped the scramble for a seat when we left China. In fact, when the train arrived, there wasn’t really too much trouble for us, the rush for the already wickedly overcrowded 3rd class (One step up form a cattle truck.) There only seemed to be one second-class carriage, + that was in pitch darkness, but there did seem to be some seats, in particular a couple of upper berths. We took one each, + to our surprise no-one told us to get off. So we stretched out + went to sleep. So much better than we’d feared.
Really quite a busy day, packing stuff in after a relatively lazy time. And then what appears to have been a lightning decision to head off to Chittagong. And after the terrors of organising travel in China, it seems to have been relatively simple.
