Strange Horizons

Yes. Packed and ready to go. After a full month of nerves around this trip, I'm set. My head is in this. No more fucking around. Hell, I even sprayed my clothes with Premetherin in a perhaps futile attempt to ward off Dengue Fever. No matter; this is the blog where you can hopefully feel free to follow my every bout with flight delays, dysentery, challenges in third world countries; and me developing a hopefully strong and new relationship with an engineering team in Bangladesh. I look forward to a new found joy in encountering people from a so completely different world from me, it breaks me down and brings me back again. Because that's, let's face it, what travel should do.

Next post...the departure from San Francisco to Dubai...and then 8 hours later to Dhaka, Bangladesh for the three and a half week work stay. Then onward to Cambodia and Thailand. No return date or flight has been set yet. I like that...

I left Dubai after an eight hour layover and not having slept on the 17 hr flight that brought me in. When I gathered with the other 300 or so people for the Dhaka flight at 2:00am Dubai time, it wasn't hard to notice I was only one of four Westerners in the crowd. An hour of being stared at. Which would've been hard, but my boss had already warned me they mean no harm. They are literally wondering what the hell you are doing where you would need to go to Dhaka. Not many people have a hankering for this part of the world.

Oh and it's not like they're going to give you a visa to enter that easily either. So I slept most of the way there...and woke up in time to capture some pics off of the wing as we descended. It's monsoon season, so there's lots of clouds and water on the ground.

I had been prepared with a formal letter of invite from my company, but apparently this German man who was trying to gain access to the country had to have a meltdown over the fact he failed to produce such a letter. It devolved into embarrassing name calling and him screaming things at the Bangladeshi police. Who in turn, smiled and endeavored to make his life worse and worse by telling him to stand in a line where when he reached the counter, he was directed to another line. Which in turn made him angrier.

As I was procurring the visa, my driver hunted me down and stood in front of me silently holding this sign up with my name on it (he had a picture of me and there weren't many redheads around that day in the airport). It took two hours to get the luggage. With him was my "security detail" who seemed to have donned a fake Bangladeshi police uniform complete with epaulettes. As we left the airport, I could see hundreds of people thronged behind a tall iron gate, pressing in and holding onto the bars while awaiting loved ones outside the perimeter where they were not allowed to enter any further.

My driver sped through Dhaka quickly. Traffick laws are non-existent here. Instead, drivers must go with the flow. And I like it. It's how I like to drive, quite frankly. Pedestrians stepped right out in front of us, not a care in the world and we artfully dodged each one. Rickshaws everywhere. Tuk tuks zooming past, cutting us off, us cutting them off...a ride in Dhaka is never dull.

I got to my hotel, unpacked, and went straight to work after a cursory shower. And finally met my co-workers! They had a special lunch brought in and we ate this green chile spiced rice with chunks of beef and round potato balls. Delicious.

My night time ride home was beautiful. They really love to light up the streets at night... And Dhaka is a very mysterious city; meandering alleys, strange and hidden shops and street food eateries... So far, this is going well.

Tomorrow, my boss and his wife show me around more. Stay tuned.

Up early this morning…the jet lag benefitted me last night by sending me to sleep at 10:30pm. Like a normal person.

I was up at 6am as a result and well rested. Took my breakfast downstairs and had the following: rice kanji, small pancakes, baked beans, chicken korma, instant coffee.

Bangladeshis don’t seem to be big coffee fans. Even in the office where the engineers work, it’s tea. There is instant coffee there, I suppose, in case someone like me shows up. Though I did revise this opinion later in the day when we visited a nice coffee shop (owned by Americans of course). But this type of establishment is not the norm. Tea stalls are.

Anyway, that may be an adaptation I need to consider.

News today out of the States: Hurricane Matthew is lumbering through the southeast. It seems very distant. I’ve not used the TV in my room and don’t plan to. Trump said something. Don't care.

My writing is picking up and the quietude of this place, the Nascent Gardenia, is washing over me. I feel at peace and the anxiety I was wrestling with has ebbed.

Anyway, later today, around noon, my boss and his wife fetched me from my appointed quarters and took me sightseeing. We went first to an artisan shop, very fair trade and high end. It was pretty amazing. Lots of handicrafts and specially made clothes (dyed with plants), etc.. Then we dove into lunch at the Chittagong Bull (Gulshan). Ok, if you are at all a fan of deeply complex spicy food, go there when in Dhaka. And if there is such a thing as Bangladeshi bbq (with a slow smoked meat with a bark on it), this is it. And my god, the flavors. Unlike any Indian food I'd ever had. It was unique. We enjoyed the bbq meat, beef liver in spicy gravy, rice and lentils, and a cucumber and onion salad (very typical). Along with freshly made naan where I watched the dough being handmade and stuck to the side of the pit oven to char. Incredible. They were worried it would be too spicy for me. In fact my boss' boss called and worried over the phone I had been taken to this restaurant.

No. No worries. I love hot, hot food. I'm not happy until I crawl out of there on my hands and knees with an endorphin high, quite frankly.

Spice notes so far: mustard oil, green chiles, garam masala, corriander, cumin, cilantro, tumeric. Keep it coming Dhaka!

Then we went to an upscale coffee shop (these are few and far between) and we enjoyed good beans and conversation and then eventually my driver dropped them off at a relatives home in Gulshan. But not before my boss needed us to pull over to a tea stand to buy two cigarettes. While he transacted this, I couldn't help but notice the old woman running the little stand with her jars of milk and sugar and so forth also had a special jar for bees and flies. They were swarming in there. She had put something in there so they wouldn't get into anything else. It was mesmerizing to watch.

Later, after going back to the hotel to rest, I summoned the driver...who by the way, just sits in the car for hours waiting for me to call. It's a bit unsettling. He speaks little English (actually, none) and I feel terrible about getting into the car after I've rested, etc.. I asked him if he'd eaten with pantomimes to underscore what I was asking. He just smiled and nodded.

Anyway, went to this festival today: Durga Puja. It's apparently THE biggest holiday/celebration for Hindus in Bangladesh for the whole year. A celebration of power. And it's complex. You can look it up. However, they built this temporary temple for it last week and it looks real. I had the driver drop me across the street and did my first Dhaka street crossing. No small task, really. But you just give over to fate and go with it. Stroll casually into the path of oncoming everything with the knowledge it will probably be fine.

The festival was really incredible, lots of ritual and lavish incense burning on the stage. Everyone there was completely tripped out by my presence. A Hindu woman dotted my forehead and three men painted my hand with something I don't understand, but admired.

Two boys standing in front of me were fanning me (it was hot) while I admired the ritural. Everyone smiled at me or expressed complete confusion. Seeing a western woman (or a Westerner) alone in Dhaka is just NOT a usual sight. I was the only Westerner there. And I felt so lucky.

Side fun note: the hotel nearby that had the "D" burned out of its neon sign. Which read "Hotel Sweet _Ream". Yeah.

Later I tried to go to see some folk music, but was out of taka (the local money) and cut myself on the bathroom door trying to make it out. The local ATMs weren't trustworthy of dispensing fraud free cash, so I pointed the driver (in pantomime and repeatedly saying the name) to the Westin Hotel. Where there I enjoyed a good buffet and a poolside bar. I will admit to taking comfort among Westerners for two hours there and enjoying it. Then I got the driver back out from the parking lot and had him take me to my hotel (no bar).

I'm exhausted, but have been writing and winding down. A full day. A good day in Dhaka.

I haven't composed an entry for the last two days as I simply got swept up into living a work life here...which is why I'm here. It's not a vacation, after all... Up early in the morning, every morning, so I can use one of the two sad little treadmills in the "fitness center" on the roof (before the humidity sets in). Then back to my room for chats with friends on Facebook, chats with the parents on Skype and checking email. Then shower (if the hot/cold ratio of water permits which varies greatly) and off to my breakfast of chicken korma, rice porridge and instant coffee.

Yesterday was a special breakfast for it was the American presidential debates. I was actually reminded of this fact four minutes before they began by a friend in the States and after trying to coach enough wifi to see it on my laptop, I finally gave up and watched it in the breakfast room. With two mysterious Chinese buisness men and five Muslim hotel workers (also men). BTW...the Chinese are investing heavily in Dhaka. 25 billion dollars this year alone. Everywhere I go, instead of seeing Westerners at hotels, etc...it's Chinese.

Anyway, the debates turned out to be just what I figured they would be. But I especially enjoyed talking politics with the Bangladeshi hotel staff. They, to no surpise of my own, were more well versed in American politics than many Americans I'm aquainted with. At one point, as Trump leered and meanaced Clinton on the stage, one of them waved dismissively at the screen and said, "He is like what we've seen before. Full of himself. What's awful is that he's coming from your country now." Yeah.

They also compared him to Daesh (ISIS) members. I couldn't disagree.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the work life here. My co-workers and I are getting to know one another and it's really helping our understanding of the various challenges we were facing when just trying to do all this over Google Hangouts. I could never understand why the Lead Engineer was late for every meeting, for instance. Now I get it. Dhaka is a semi-controlled chaos. It's amazing anyone makes it to work.

The food is great. Spicy...all of it. But the landscape of the city is what really gets me. How does this amazing human experiment even work? The power lines, for instance, are seemingly strung together with no reason. Yes, there are no power outages or fires. The streets are filled with chaos and beggars, rickshaws, tuktuks, and motorcycles...yet not one accident. I feel safe. My car lacks safety belts, but I've decided not to care.

My hotel is basic, so after work each night, I speak to the driver in Bengali: "Ami ki dinner korte Westin jete pari?" (Can I go to the Westin Hotel for dinner?) and he takes me. The driver is a quiet and rather tall Bengali in his thirties, if I had to guess. If I want him to stop and let me out in some chaotic part of the city, he does so reluctantly and somehow...even if it's an hour later and I can't hail him on the phone (spotty service here), he will simply materialize out of a crowd of hundreds of people and chaos and so forth to fetch me to the car where he impossibly found parking. How he even finds me again is a mystery that's yet to be solved. I have a theory he's ex-military or police. Very sweet though. I often wonder what his life is like. But he speaks no English. I am endeavoring to learn some Begali while I am here (also because I hope to be sent back as often as possible).

I have heard that Dhaka is a shithole. That it's one of the worst cities to live in. But all I've found so far is an introduction to a humbling experience full of truly beautiful people. But it's all new still. I have a few more weeks to settle into it all.

I am here for work. So I stayed up late toiling away in my hotel room last night preparing for a demo of something I was building. My room is small and the AC needs adjustment every hour in order to keep it comfortable. Outside, I'm told by my boss, there is no place for me to go alone. No where to "take the air" and wander as I'm used to doing in the States. There is only the roof. I go there in the morning to excercise and when I'm done, flocks of large green parrots wheel overhead shrieking and clacking. Their sound becoming one of a thousand sounds happening at that moment in the air.

It's hot and muggy, but not as bad as it is during the intolerable summer. My co-workers all show up to the office around 11 to noon, all cheeirly exclaiming "Shuvo shkokal!" and "Assalamualaikum!" to me. They did it in English at first, until I made a point of telling them I wanted to learn as much Bengali as possible. I'm learning some phrases too. I've memorized a few that I can rattle off on the phone to my driver that has won the admiration of my co-workers ("Ami niche ashbo ektu pore 5 minutes") and I have fun doing it. Being somewhere new, learning a new language, I'll admit...it's an escape from one's self.

And everyone stays until 7 or 8. I think this is by design because first, traffic is so horrific in this city, it puts to shame anything I've seen in Mexico City or even Seattle, WA for that matter. And two, the sun has set. The heat is still there, but there's something alive and celebratory about the nighttime in Dhaka. Little fires shoot up on the wheeled carts of some of the boys making small pastries. They all seem to have a small propane flame that calls attention to their brightly painted carts. Then there are the endless open air markets that ramble on for block after block...miles and miles of this all spreading out through a city of 20 million people. It's staggering to try and understand how dense this place is. How insignificant we are in the face of the organism that is Dhaka.

Nothing remarkable to report other than my ride home tonight. It was a mellow day at work that was preceeded by a quick commute in. 20 minutes! I asked about this and my co-workers informed me that Friday is their Saturday. Our office is one of the few places that works on Friday. It's a religious day, apparently. How deceptive that ride was...

I left work at 5:45 after arranging with a co-worker to tour Old Dhaka tomorrow (which I am greatly looking forward to) and summoned the driver. I usually have him take me to the Westin for dinner and a wine after work, but this is getting expensive, so I just had him take me back to my temporary home. All went well until we neared the Prime Minister's compound. Traffic began to thicken and clog and then, in a desparate move to avoid the inevitable, he turned down another street. And suddenly, everything ground to a halt.

The vibe was weird. He could sense it too. I spun up Google and typed in English questions and received the Bengli translations which I asked him. He smiled nervously and said "all stopped". Boys hanging off the backs of buses and on top of them, for that matter, started to clamber down. People were getting out of cars and rickshaws. And then, after about a half hour, this steady stream of people suddenly, and very quickly started moving away from our intended route of travel, some running. Cars were frantically trying to turn around. I couldn't tell what this was about or if it was panic of some sort...but it didn't seem good. So the driver and I looked at each other and I turned around and just started guiding him out...we kept backing up and I would tell him if this pocket or that pocket was clear. We worked like this for 15 minutes to extricate ourselves, then he just leaned on the horn and barrled forward, scattering pedestrians from in front of us, until we had turned off onto another road where traffic was flowing again. This time with police sirens wailing.

We shadowed the police until we were in a part of the city I had never seen before. Rutted dirt roads. Wild dogs loping along on the side. More people scurrying along in the darkness, and dust kicked up everywhere. Giant clouds of it. He sped up and these headlights would come at us headlong through the clouds and we all swerved at the last minute and missed, and then kept going. Strange heaps of rubble, more pockets of tea shacks and stalls with flickering flame lights and then into another district. Stalled again, but the vibe was less weird. Finally an hour later, we rolled through this new part, more flashing alleys and then the call to prayer. The muezzin singing his haunting song at top volume on the speaker. This went on for some time.

When he finally turned into the security checkpoint at Gulshan, his shoulders visibly relaxed. He turned to me and finally smiled. He had been nervous. I still don't know what it was all about. Time enroute home...2.5 hours.

Tomorrow, Old Dhaka.

I'm working 11 hour days here. When you roll the time stuck in traffic getting to and from the office, well, it's a minor miracle I'm typing this out now.

On Saturday, after Friday's Epic Traffic Jam (which even awed Bangladeshis city wide I found out later, thanks to the Chinese Prime Minister who was visiting), I woke early and arranged to meet with our company "fixer". Let's just call him Rafi (not his real name). We had planned for me to take off from my hotel by 10am, but the Chinese Prime Minister again waylaid traffic for 20 million people in the city with his departure. So my driver could not reach me until 1pm. By then, the streets were miraculously clear.

We made it to Rafi and off we went to Old Dhaka. First stop, the Lalbagh Fort...an old Mogul fort built in the 16th century by a guy with the best of intentions (seemingly) until his daughter died towards the end of the project. He was so grief stricken, he did not finish the fort and instead had her entombed inside. It was nice to see it, mainly because it offered a strange oasis away from the never ending cacophony of Dhaka, a city with few parks to escape the urban jungle.

It has rose gardens, abandoned bathing areas and a nice grassy hill from which to view all the encroaching towers that loom over the enclaves and gardens. It's almost like Dhaka is fighting its way into the fort and soon the fort will surrender. As usual, I was the only foreigner there, save one other person laden with cameras who was Asian (probably Chinese).

We then went to the oldest Hindu temple in Dhaka. That was somewhat peaceful. Now that Durja Puja is over, the temple was sparsely attended and we enjoyed walking around the mostly empty grounds. Then Rafi took me through his old stomping grounds from university days, showed me the vibrant markets near his old school and then, a special treat, took me to Hotel al-Razzaat...a famous biryani joint. To me it looked like any other place from the front, but when we walked in, I immediately took note of the old Colonial feel of it. Ceiling fans, waiters dressed in their uniforms and "Ladies Cabins" off on the side wall...special rooms to dine in if you happen to be female or with females. Rafi reassured me we would not have to be segregated and we strolled up to a long wooden table and sat down.

The biryanis here were delicious! Soft pillowy rice spiced just right with tamarind seeds tucked inside and an accompanying plate of mutton slathered with a dark spicy gravy. A week ago, I gave into the local custom and have started to eat with my hands, as they do here. There is a hand washing ritual before dining and rest assured, everyone takes part in cleaning yourself before using your right hand to pile the rice and spicy gravy into small hills, expertly putting this on your fingers, and flicking it into one's mouth. After a few meals, you get used to it. When will I have the chance again to experience this kind of cuture so intimately? Of course I'm eating with my hands!

To accompany the meal, I had an unusual drink of sour curds, cardmom and cumin and maybe ground pistachio? Not sure. The flavor was intense and complex and I couldn't figure out all the notes. But it helps with digestion and with cooling the spice on the tongue. It was called Burhnai.

After the meal, we toured the auto parts market. I feel that nothing I write would justly describe this place. Again, more mysterious shops, shoulder to shoulder, dark with oil and grease and engines. In some doorways, it was completely dark save the smelting fires emmanating from way back inside. Children using sledgehammers to disassemble engines. Rafi told me an entertaining story about how his friend had something stripped from his car one time and he went to this market to find a cheap replacement for it. Only to find the very thing that had been stripped. Undeniably his. I have a video of this market and of Rafi telling the story...hopefully I get my Youtube issues worked out.

After that, the river markets, an old palace (the pink mosque like structure in some of the photos) and the cloth markets. What can be said about the cloth markets? They were narrow and other wordly. Colorful and dense. Unlke anything I'd experienced before. The streets are incredibly narrow there and the favored method of travel is rickshaw...yet I was still not allowed (safety! Arrgh!). So we muscled the car in ridiculous fashion down streets never designed for a car and as people looked up in disbelief at me, the white westerned, I took pictures. That felt weird, but I'm not allowed out and they are not used to visitors. So there it was. The lens moving slowly down the ancient street.

More to tell, too tired to tell it all. Here, enjoy some photos. Mostly of the river market and cloth market. I will post the stolen auto parts market, the palace and fort photos next time.

Some videos of the last few days....

Starting with a pic of the "fixer" whom I depend on. The driver's photo is also in here (close up a man's face...that's him).

I've mentioned a few times, I'm here for work. So as of last week, two more team members joined me from the United States. I was transferred to a much better hotel and now we are staying there together. Also we are closer to the office, so no more one and a half hour commutes to work (mostly stuck in traffic).

No we are in the 5 star lap of luxury now. And we continue our trend of working long days. But the thing is, bringing me out here, having me meet my team mates who I only saw over sketchy Google Hangout feeds previous to this, it's great. It connects me more deeply to our projects.

Anyway, the last week has gone something like this. I went to the largest mall in Dhaka to buy some affordably priced Bangladeshi scarves and ended up with about 8 of them. All beautiful colors. Pictures of the mall will be included in this post below. The mall was kindof fascinating in its own right. I've also been seeing how the wealthier part of the city live by getting to know a relative of one of the people who runs our company. An incredibly nice person with a beautiful palatial estate who served us a meal all completely sourced from his own organic farm outside of Dhaka. The food, the company and the change from dining alone at the hotel to eating with one another in such a nice house was really enjoyable.

Yesterday, me and a few of my teammates (the US members) went with my boss, who is from Dhaka originally, to sightsee. Since the ruling political party decided to literally SHUT DOWN ALL OF THE ROADS in the city for the ENTIRE weekend so they could have their weird political "convention", we had to cancel our plans to venture out to a rural village where we could fish in a pond and kill the chickens we would later eat (this was an actual plan for our team building excercise). So, instead we had to go "free form". I was weirdly looking forward to the village expedition. It would have put us up close and personal with the rural roots some of our Bangldeshi co-workers grew up with. And understanding someone's context like this is an important thing when building bridges between countries. Oh well.

Well, first, we went shopping at a few great shops (more scarves, a beautiful wall hanging, countless Christmas presents and a book of Bangladeshi recipes). Then we went to a suit shop to get someone fitted for a custom suit. He got to pick out his own fabric, they took endless measurements and we all helped him design the suit of his dreams. It was rather fun and it was only a few hundred dollars. A steal!

We ate traditional food at a local Gulshan restaurant and then we cast about for ideas of what to do. I wanted to see river life and asked for a boat ride. But no, again the streets were closed. My boss did know of a lake where perhaps we could find boats though, and so off we went.

We arrived and walked to the shore only to find instead of boats, there were people standing on burlap bags that were presumably filled with something that made them float, and these people huddled together on this innovative and very makeshift raft as they slowly and painstakingly ferried themselves over the water to a ramshackle collection of huts on the other side. More people awaited the return of this raft to also take them when it presumably made the return trip.

So no boats for us. It was an astonishing moment to behold though.

My boss's wife then suggested this field full of beautiful grass and flowers (we were complaining a lot about not being able to walk around because of their nervous security concerns). So back into the van and the driver began taking us toward the edge of town. We drove for quite sometime until we came to a huge open area where there were no buildings. Just piles and piles of brick and brick fragments and people laboring under the hot sun, barefoot some of them, to build indiscernible buildings or homes or something. It was obvious this was to be an entire neighborhood or office or something....but all we saw were the beginnings of foundations and bricks and dust and smoke and these people toiling. An old man casually strolled past the van with about 15 bricks stacked on his very head.

When I mentioned it, my boss said, "You should see how they load him up with those, they just toss the bricks one by one onto the stack on his head until it looks like that". It weirdly made sense since no one could be tall enough to reach that high to add them.

We drove further and further into this desolate landscape and I actually felt uneasy. This looked like a great place to dispose of a body or get mugged. But when we decided to stop by the tall, feathery grass and get out, it felt good to walk around. Some of the laborers stopped their work and watched us with curiosity. In the distance, a cricket game was being played in the hot dust near some statue of some importance. It all had a post-apocalyptic feel to it. Smoke rose in the horizon from something vague and unidentifiable.

We had fun clambering on top of piles of bright red brick fragments and posing for photos. Out product managers darted into the grass and emerged as if on a strange safari in an imaginary world. The brutal labor the workers were doing compared with our joyous running around and leaping onto these mounds of dirt were such an odd juxtaposition for me. It felt like we were in some dystopian world somehow.

Later, we visited one of Dhaka's few bars, the Blue Moon in Gulshan. I took a few pics of that place too. Even though I wasn't supposed to...

What else? We visited a co-working space (the first and only one of its kind in Bangladesh..run by two women!) and then went to hang with my boss's old friends...two members of a famous Bangladeshi rock and roll group and the two educators who lived with them. What a charming and wonderful gang of friends they were! It was great to meet artists and intellectuals and relax with them and talk music, poetry, travel and the history of Bangladesh as well. That and a few gin and tonics. Fantastic day all around.

A long flight took me to Malayasia and then finally to Phnom Pehn. Vacation had officially begun! Most of my photos are from randomly wandering around. I was lucky each time, to just miss being caught in the torrential downpours of the monsoon rains that come every evening. Met two British ex-pats who had been living there for about 3 years. They remained mum on what brought them to the city. I found that to be true of a few people I met who had moved there.

But I did get some video of the rain and it comes down so hard, it roars. It's a good sound.

The hotel was great at first glance, but the fact that the internet never worked and two other travelers had money taken from the room safe leads me to warn against it (Monsoon Inn and Spa). Still it came with a private balcony and great bathroom.

Anyway, I wanted to take a boat to Siem Reap and despite multiple warnings from people living in Phnom Pehn not to take it (it would run out of gas, they throw the luggage overboard when the boats get stuck in the mud, it'll capsize, etc, etc) I purchased my $30 ticket and took it anyway.

Luxury boat it was not. Long and narrow and aging it was. No ventilation inside, but once it got going, there was air in the cabin. The seats were hard and the only way to see the scenery was to cling to the small railing that was about knee high outside. Some just opted to climb onto the roof and take it in from there. No safety vests, no safety talk. Just the motors revving up and off we went!

The riverside life was great to see, though and in the end, the boat was completely worth it. I'm now in Siem Reap at a gorgeous hotel for a few days before going to Thailand. I have my three day pass for Angkor Wat and I'm ready to soak in the street life here. Already hired a tu tuk driver for the next few days...Mr. Lee. I'm in good hands.

The boat only got stuck once in the mud...don't attempt this journey in the dry season! Seriously. Just don't.