We arrived in Sylhet on the afternoon of February 4th after a VERY long and harrowing bus ride.
I will confess a little bit of surprise... I was expecting the ride from Dhaka to Sylhet to be quiet and I guess like long bus rides between main cities of other countries I have visited, where you take some time getting out of the capital city but then a long empty road until you reach your final destination, but I guess it never occurred to me that with the population of a country like Bangladesh there isn't much of an "empty" road. And I don't mean just empty of cars, I am so used to seeing long periods between villages and homes, but that just didn't exist. There would be brief periods of rice paddies and mustard fields, but there were still lots of homes or apartment buildings for the people who work those crops. And although we were all hoping for a quick wink or two of sleep, with the farm animals in the road and people and other cars, our bus horn was still in frequent use, and of course the same lack of adherence to road guidelines is all over, meaning our bus was zooming around work trucks and people and rickshaws and whatever else that was in our way... I won't ever try sleeping on a bus here again! My eyelids would start to droop, and then the horn would sound and the bus would sway dangerously or the driver would slam on the brakes... Not a peaceful ride at all...
BUT we made it safely, despite unfounded rumors that we wouldn't be able to enter the city due to a protest of some sort.
Our hosts and the GSE Coordinator for the Sylhet region were waiting for us, with some gorgeous flowers, and then we were able to go home for a bit of rest, to look forward to our meeting that night, when we got to see a new Rotary project- a blood bank!
We also wanted to make sure we were able to rest up for our tour of the beauty surrounding Sylhet to follow the next day...which never came to pass, due to a hartal! Dr. Tonya and I went off the reservation, since we technically were told to not leave the house at all but our combined host lived in the middle of the city, close to everything. We walked over to the hotel owned by another Rotarian for a bit of lunch in the afternoon and through a shrine on the way back. We did get to see a little excitement only a block or two from the house- as we were approaching the main road, we saw a bunch of motorcycles and people walking on foot, all shouting and making a commotion. It was like an old-fashioned angry mob! So Dr. Tonya and I covered our heads with our scarves (because we are probably just paranoid, but our blond hair attracts a LOT of attention and I do not want the attention of anything resembling an angry mob) and ducked back into an alley while we waited for them to pass, but then the mob stopped between us and the house! We waited a few minutes and then they came back the same way, thankfully not paying any attention to us, and we walked quickly the rest of the way towards the house. I don't know if it was related to the "angry mob" but there were bricks and broken glass in the road that I'm fairly certain were not there on our way to the hotel earlier in the day, but of course with the language barrier I have no idea what was going on, or if this protest was related to the hartal, but I could have fun speculating as to what exactly was going on for days and days...
As we neared the house, our host and guide Mr. Hoque walked right past his front gate, and we went up some stairs to a very large spa called "Aporupa"...Dr. Tonya and I weren't really sure what was happening, but we were taken for a tour of the spa, and then we were lucky enough to meet the owner! She is a lovely woman whom I hope to see again someday, and as a treat she had some of her employees decorate our hands and arms with mendhi (henna)!
Then of course we had to go home and get ready for a night of Rotarian fellowship, but once again we weren't sure how to hartal would have changed the plans, if at all, so we just kind of rolled with it! Our host took us by the University /Hospital where his daughter is learning medicine, and then over to a Rotary project hospital where they do physical therapy and prosthesis for the disabled. One Rotarian, Dr. Choudhury, was a GSE leader himself, on a trip to Texas back in the 90's...as a doctor he spent some vocational days at a hospital where they did physical therapy and prosthetics, and he decided that Sylhet needed one just like it, so when he came home he proposed the idea to his fellow Rotarians, and they set about raising the funds!
And then we went to a local restaurant for a night of fellowship, but it included Manipuri (sp?) dancing and lots of nice music!
The next day another hartal was called but Dr. Choudhury was kind enough to offer his services (or rather, his ambulance) as a way to see some of Sylhet without running into issues with hartals or protests! So we got to ride around in this baby all day!!!
Meredith unfortunately had to miss out; she was feeling poorly.
Our "limousine" took us to breakfast at the home of another Rotarian, and then we went to see Dr. Choudhury's brother-in-law at work! Technically his BIL works for Chevron, at a kind of oil drilling/extracting plant, but there is a tea garden on the premises, so we did get to see a tea garden in Sylhet, just not how we had imagined ;-)
Dr. Choudhury's wife accompanied us on our tour :)
Explaining how the tea leaves are picked and processed
The tea gardens aren't blooming this time of year, but I can imagine how beautiful it is during the wet season!
Chevron has 3 out of 4 pumps working in Sylhet, which apparently is a better-than-average ratio
That night we attended a big event that included all of the different Rotary clubs of Sylhet, and they sang for us and gave a big presentation of all of the sights we would haven been able to see, had there not been a full two days of hartal... One big surprise though was that Holly and Meredith's host-sisters decided to dress them up as Bangladeshi brides- we didn't even recognize them at first!!!
(and before anyone freaks out, none of us actually pierced our noses, though I looked into it... Holly and Meredith's sisters used clip-on nose rings for this)
I had to laugh, because the son of one of the Rotary club presidents wanted to sing for us, first an American song, then a song in bangla, but the "American" song he chose to sing for us was Justin Bieber's "Baby"... my niece should get a kick out of that!
We had to have an early night, due to our bus leaving to go back to Dhaka at 7:30am the next day, but we had a good time with our host in Sylhet, and I plan on coming back someday so I can actually see some of the beauty Sylhet has to offer!
I will confess a little bit of surprise... I was expecting the ride from Dhaka to Sylhet to be quiet and I guess like long bus rides between main cities of other countries I have visited, where you take some time getting out of the capital city but then a long empty road until you reach your final destination, but I guess it never occurred to me that with the population of a country like Bangladesh there isn't much of an "empty" road. And I don't mean just empty of cars, I am so used to seeing long periods between villages and homes, but that just didn't exist. There would be brief periods of rice paddies and mustard fields, but there were still lots of homes or apartment buildings for the people who work those crops. And although we were all hoping for a quick wink or two of sleep, with the farm animals in the road and people and other cars, our bus horn was still in frequent use, and of course the same lack of adherence to road guidelines is all over, meaning our bus was zooming around work trucks and people and rickshaws and whatever else that was in our way... I won't ever try sleeping on a bus here again! My eyelids would start to droop, and then the horn would sound and the bus would sway dangerously or the driver would slam on the brakes... Not a peaceful ride at all...
BUT we made it safely, despite unfounded rumors that we wouldn't be able to enter the city due to a protest of some sort.
Our hosts and the GSE Coordinator for the Sylhet region were waiting for us, with some gorgeous flowers, and then we were able to go home for a bit of rest, to look forward to our meeting that night, when we got to see a new Rotary project- a blood bank!
We also wanted to make sure we were able to rest up for our tour of the beauty surrounding Sylhet to follow the next day...which never came to pass, due to a hartal! Dr. Tonya and I went off the reservation, since we technically were told to not leave the house at all but our combined host lived in the middle of the city, close to everything. We walked over to the hotel owned by another Rotarian for a bit of lunch in the afternoon and through a shrine on the way back. We did get to see a little excitement only a block or two from the house- as we were approaching the main road, we saw a bunch of motorcycles and people walking on foot, all shouting and making a commotion. It was like an old-fashioned angry mob! So Dr. Tonya and I covered our heads with our scarves (because we are probably just paranoid, but our blond hair attracts a LOT of attention and I do not want the attention of anything resembling an angry mob) and ducked back into an alley while we waited for them to pass, but then the mob stopped between us and the house! We waited a few minutes and then they came back the same way, thankfully not paying any attention to us, and we walked quickly the rest of the way towards the house. I don't know if it was related to the "angry mob" but there were bricks and broken glass in the road that I'm fairly certain were not there on our way to the hotel earlier in the day, but of course with the language barrier I have no idea what was going on, or if this protest was related to the hartal, but I could have fun speculating as to what exactly was going on for days and days...
As we neared the house, our host and guide Mr. Hoque walked right past his front gate, and we went up some stairs to a very large spa called "Aporupa"...Dr. Tonya and I weren't really sure what was happening, but we were taken for a tour of the spa, and then we were lucky enough to meet the owner! She is a lovely woman whom I hope to see again someday, and as a treat she had some of her employees decorate our hands and arms with mendhi (henna)!
Our "limousine" took us to breakfast at the home of another Rotarian, and then we went to see Dr. Choudhury's brother-in-law at work! Technically his BIL works for Chevron, at a kind of oil drilling/extracting plant, but there is a tea garden on the premises, so we did get to see a tea garden in Sylhet, just not how we had imagined ;-)
That night we attended a big event that included all of the different Rotary clubs of Sylhet, and they sang for us and gave a big presentation of all of the sights we would haven been able to see, had there not been a full two days of hartal... One big surprise though was that Holly and Meredith's host-sisters decided to dress them up as Bangladeshi brides- we didn't even recognize them at first!!!
I had to laugh, because the son of one of the Rotary club presidents wanted to sing for us, first an American song, then a song in bangla, but the "American" song he chose to sing for us was Justin Bieber's "Baby"... my niece should get a kick out of that!
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