The friendliness of the local people continued even now that I was with a tour group ... this picture shows me with a lady from a Bangladeshi village (visiting the capital and here specifically at the Pink Palace), who had never seen a white person before ... she communicated with me through her son, expressed her happiness at meeting me - and did not want to let me go!
Our tour visited the highlights of the capital, then moved on to the Sundarbans, where we spent a few days on a boat. Whilst this area is well-known for its tigers, it seems that they are rarely seen - our guide has seen one just once, back in 2003! But having seen tigers in India, I was not worried ... I just enjoyed the occasional deer, the wild boars, and the amazing kingfishers. I do not have a picture of a brown-winged kingfisher, as I was too awed at their stunning appearance to think to pick up my camera, but I'm so glad I saw them.
We also took boat trips along rivers (the country is very water-based, and I think I saw more boats of varying sizes on this visit than in the rest of my life put together!), seeing the scenery and the day-to-day life of some of the country people, and some wildlife. The guide had hoped we'd spot dolphins, but only he and I were lucky enough to be looking in the right direction to see one leap out of the water - and I was also lucky enough to see a snake (a checkered keelback) catch a fish in a village pond, shaking its head to subdue the flapping creature and then taking it under the overhanging bank to consume it. It was moving too much to get a picture of it with the fish, but this is a picture I took of another such snake (I saw a few of them).
We heard Hoolock gibbons whilst walking through the Lawachara National Park, one group of them sounding pretty close, but unfortunately some members of my group did not show any interest and so our guide did not push us to speed up and try to track them down. One of the disadvantages of group travel, I suppose.
On the other hand, we had the advantage of getting to visit a few villages in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, for which you need special government permits that are not available to independent backpackers! There we saw various traditional tribal peoples, and I must say that much of the time it felt more like being in Burma than in Bangladesh (indeed many of these groups do not, apparently, feel part of Bangladesh - one of the reasons why security is a bit of an issue and special visitor permits are needed). & on this matter, those of us who happened to be in the right place and looking in the right direction during a visit to a market in a larger town, were lucky to see a lady from the Tripura tribe (and thankfully this time I had my camera to hand), whose region is off-limits to visitors. Whilst all women from her tribe would wear the coils on the arm, and the necklaces, apparently the earrings indicate her high status. In the past, married women of that tribe did not wear any clothes on their top half, but I suspect that even in her village this has now changed.
We ended the tour in Chittagong, a city I rather liked, and then flew back to Dhaka for a last night in the capital. Another meal out ... but thankfully there always seemed to be a non-spicy option or two on the menus, so whilst I didn't get much choice, I was at least able to eat without burning my mouth, throat, etc. Even those in our group who like chilli said that they suffered after eating some of the meals.
So, a good trip. More varied, and thus rewarding, than I'd expected it to be, and helped by the friendliness of the Bangladeshi people.
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