Girls just wanna' have fun

Or so I thought until a couple of my favourite girls landed at Zia International Airport in Dhaka about ten days ago. It turns out girls not only want to have fun, but they want electricity to power fans, oral rehydration salts to power bodies, and regular toilet stops to, um, well, yes.

Lucky for Penny, Sally and I, the 'desh has largely been able to provide all of these between the 'race across the nation' cultural program I designed for us. Think glitz and glamour (the outfits), think exotic, exciting overland journeys (yay for travel insurance), think 'authentic experience' (we'd love to stay for lunch in this tiny village with no sanitary facilities but we simply must run...)

The ten days Penny had didn't sound like much until we began. You see, it all started very civilly with Pen and I easing into our Dhaka days with a cup of the desh's finest (okay, only) Lavazza:



Before exploring the wonder that is Old Dhaka (think The Rocks*), Karwon Bazar (think Flemington Markets), the artsy fartsy parts of Dhanmondi (think Newtown), the shopping and eating mecca that is Banani (think...Paddington?), and the expat club scene (think, er, alcohol).

But things became rather hectic once Sal came to town (yes, there were tears, and they were mine), and the brave girls they are have been whisked from one end of Bangladesh to the other via every means of transport that has turned up. Whether it be back of Bangladesh's environmentally sound answer to the ute:



Pen and I on the back of a flatbed rickshaw in Dinajpur

Or catching regular rickshaws, CNGs, local buses, boats, and first class coaches - we've done it all. Catching sleep whenever we could became the name of the game, which is a lot harder than it looks when you throw in 14 hours of Bollywood music and movies over loudspeakers. Noise canceling headphones, how I lust after you!



Sal displaying her amazing ability to sleep on demand

In the ten days that were, we managed to pack in:



Rangpur and Dinajpur



Mini Bangladesh in Chittagong

The shipwrecking yards



I still don't want a job there, no matter how many times I go

with a side visit to a small village which gave Penny the opportunity to clean off some of the 'goo' she'd souvenired on her feet:



Pumping water from the tube well so Penny could cleanse before the crowd

and time in Sitakundo, a town just north of Chittagong with heavy Hindu influences



A local Hindu temple

where we got invited underneath a tree by a local guru, as you do.



Underground with a Guru

Having the gals here has been simply amazing. I love sharing my life here, and watching their faces light up (albeit sometimes with terror at the oncoming truck...) at the sights and delights has been really rewarding, at least for me.

While Pen has already departed, I've still got Sal for another three weeks, and have even found her a job as official photographer for my next work field trip.

There's plenty of work to go round, so if anyone else wants to come and join us, you know how to reach me!

*Apologies for my readers unfamiliar with Sydney, but it's my blog and I'll...