Bangladesh - the first few days on my own
My introduction to Bangladesh was challenging, but rewarding. I'd booked the first few nights in a cheap part of town near a big bus interchange, to help me find my way around the city, and I knew that it was possible to take a bus directly there from the airport. So I stepped out of the aiport into the hot, sticky, polluted air of Dhaka, to the bus stop, and fended off the rickshaw drivers by telling them I was going "far ... to Jatrabari". The bus stop was chaotic, with so many different buses pulling in, none of them with anything written in Western lettering, so I couldn't read the bus company names nor the destinations. But it didn't matter, as one of the rickshaw drivers caught my attention and pointed to a bus pulling in - "Jatrabari bus!" he said, and indeed it was. People made space for me at the front of the bus, two people who spoke some English tried to make conversation, and I was told when we were arriving at my stop. Another place fu...