We arrived in Dhaka late but getting through the airport was fairly easy which was surprising given that the government had given us a hard time about our journalists visas which took them six months to approve. I think one of the reasons for the delay was NY Times article about the treatment of a labor leader by the government, so they weren’t exactly keen on us being there I’m sure.
Leaving the airport it was dark and there wasn’t much in the way of streetlights, signs, traffic lights or, order. It was complete chaos. The cars or buses that did have headlights didn’t have taillights — but they all had horns, loud ones.
We survived customs officials and traffic in Dhaka, now there was only one more thing to overcome as the sign on the balcony door of my hotel room warned, “PLEASE DO NOT OPEN DOOR DUE TO MOSQUITOES.” Apparently, they are particularly vicious here.
The next day, we began our journey to Gaibandha to catch a boat to a hospital ship moored to a char to begin filming. A char is a small island or massive sandbar created by ebbs and flows of the Brahmaputra River. At least 4 million people live on these chars and each year many chars disappear due to monsoons, cyclones or melting snows from the Himalayas.
We left a little late so we caught some of the rush-hour traffic. Slowly it began to dissipate as we reached the
outskirts of the city. But, we started noticing a lot more people in the street, in fact, many seemed to be protesting.
Soon after cars full of police started zipping by. We had arrived in Dhaka a week after a fire killed over 100 factory workers and families and workers were angry and demanding answers.
We continued north along the same road. Even though it was morning the sky didn’t seem to clear up, despite the fact that the sun was out and there were few clouds. Soon I saw why. Beyond the factories along the road were brick kilns, hundreds of them standing like needles injecting chemical venom into the sky.
It was only an hour into our trip and it had already been quite lively. However, the next 6 hours turned out to be the most dangerous driving experience I have been through (except for the return trip a week later which became the new number one).
Bangladesh has the distinct honor of laying claim to the most dangerous road in the world. However, somehow, this one isn’t it. But, this one has to be second place.
Large trucks, buses, cars, passenger vans, motorized rickshaws, and bicycles all honking their horns and maneuvering to get ahead make this a terrifying white-knuckle odyssey. You couldn’t sit on the side with the oncoming traffic and not swerve towards the middle of the seat when cars or trucks passed within inches of the van’s frame. I’ve driven in dense fog in the mountains of Honduras where I had to ask my friend to roll down her window and make sure I didn’t drive off the edge, driven from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad, Iraq during the Iraq war, and faced plenty of icy roads or hurricanes in the US — this didn’t come close to comparing. And this was during the day. There are no streetlights and many vehicles do not have headlamps or taillights as I previously menioned.
We finally arrived at Gaibandha, our ferry embarkation point. We wanted SIM cards for our phones so our local contact pulled the mini-van over and got out to see if he could find some. He was gone for about 5 minutes and as I was looking out the window at the traffic going by and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rickshaw topple over. It just scraped the side of our mini-van with its mirror as it landed on its side. The driver managed to get out and started pulling passengers out. Our driver pulled out of our spot and moved down the road, as we drove away I could see liquid pouring out from underneath and at first thought it was fuel. Then I remembered these rickshaws are called CNGs (Compressed Natural Gas) for a reason. I eventually lost track of the scene due to all the traffic, everyone seemed to go on about their business. So did we.
We arrived at the drop off point and walked our belongings to a small boat on a sandy plane. It was dusk and still had a 50 minute ride down river to the char where the first hospital ship was moored.
Next: The chars of northern Bangladesh, beautiful but harsh lands that disappear under water.