Awe, the wonderful (6 hr) bus ride to the beautiful city of Sylhet! As Stephanie mentioned, it was quite an adventure!! The bus itself was very luxurious with big recliner seats, however, the driving was absolutely CRAZY!! It had the loudest horn I've ever heard and was used constantly! If there was something in the road then it instantly got out of the way or we swerved missing it by two inches!! All in all, we did make it! :)
This trip we stayed with two lovely families. Steph & Tonya stayed together and Meredith & I shared a place. We stayed with such a fun, sweeeeeeeet family! The father, Hanif, and his wife, Rashida, had four beautiful daughters Nuha 22, Tahiya 17, Kefa 14, and little Seubhi 10. So you can imagine the girl time we had. :) Since there was a hartal (strike- both days we were there), we aren't really suppose to leave the house and the entire city shuts down (no school or shops open). Poor Meredith got really sick so she was able to take rest. :( I had a lot of fun hanging out (which they call gossiping) with the girls. I taught them how to curl their hair (which they loved) and they drew handmade henna on our hands.
Our host father made these for us... :)
Girls, Girls, Girls!
My new family...
First time using a curling iron...yikes haha
Each night we had a rotary meeting, but the clubs were very fun. We had great entertainment with lots of dancing and singing!
Thursday morning the hartal continued meaning there are no cars on the road (only Rickshaws and people walking) since it was too dangerous to get stopped in a car. However, we met some great Rotarians and one happened to be a doctor who was so kind to let us borrow his ambulance so we could go out and see a tea garden! This was much safer and we were able to drive with the lights on. I was the patient just in case we got pulled over. :)
Tea Garden!
That night we had our farewell dinner. Meredith's and my new sisters decided to buy us Sari's and take us to a salon to get dressed up like Bangladeshi brides! Haha it was quite the experience. Don't worry...neither of us got married! We surprised everyone by showing up with a live marching band and I didn't even recognize myself, let alone anyone else. We had a great time and its a night I definitely won't forget.
The daughters were so sweet and spoiled us every second of the day! The grandparents were so adorable and the grandma reminded me so much of mine and kept saying she wanted to keep us. Fine with me...haaha Love this family!!
Pic of grandparents
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