Still, it would be offensive to describe the historic Old Dhaka as "only" busy.
Intense is closer, exhausting is correct.
Our little tour started from Sadarghat River Boat Terminal where hundreds of passenger river boats arrive and depart. The terminal is ranked as one of the largest river ports in the world with about 150 000 daily passengers.
It felt that all the 150 000 were there at the same time with us. Plus all the other hangarounds from salesmen to beggars and watertaxi drivers.
The boats leave in the evening but already early afternoon 3rd class deck passengers had started building their little base camps with food, clothes, bags, babies, grandmothers on their blankets. It looked more like a refugee camp than a boat.
A deck place at an overnight tour along the Buriganga river to the southern parts of Bangladesh costs a couple of euros.
Now the building is a museum, in severe need of a loving curator. Even the cobwebs seemed to be original.
As we walked round the Palace, our group of three grew almost as rapidly as the population in Bangladesh. Our new group members were, however, not interested in Bangla history but in us.
It was not allowed to take pictures in the museum but outside the building everybody wanted to pose with us.
From the palace gardens we continued to Hindu Street, an area of narrow streets settled 300 years ago by Hindu artisans.
A conscientious Western health inspector would probably get a nervous breakdown of food vendors sitting in the middle of mud and rubbish.
But the atmosphere was kind of charming with a plethora of small shops, decaying houses, clothes lines, hindu temples. And the best: no cars
Looks like a fabulous day of discovery.
ReplyDelete