Let's take the long way home

I’ve had what can only be classified as an ordinary week. I’ve worked from an office with views and air conditioning, drank real coffee with skim milk, eaten Japanese, Korean, Italian, Australian and Bangladeshi. I’ve had red wine, been to great parties, worn a dress and makeup, had broadband Internet access, and watched some TV. I even used a washing machine – it has been that ordinary.

After a week of living the high life in the capital city, I’m about to go back to Chittagong, which, while hardly the wilderness, certainly lacks the perks of a true ex-pat lifestyle. Having been one in the past to criticise ex-pats for all their lazy ways – with their drivers and cars and high wages and access to good food and drink and all the mod cons, speaking none of the local language while everyone around them is living off the cost of their morning toast for a week – I need to eat a bit of humble pie.

Truth is, the only way I could live here beyond my AYAD role would be if I found a position in the capital which offered access to all these wonderfully excessive things without the hassle of a treacherous 15 hour return bus journey squashed into a weekend to get them. Oh, and an International salary; I’m soon to be broke.

I feel like I have reached the point where I’ve lived outside my own culture, and the things that make me feel comfortable, for long enough, and now I want back in. I want familiar food and familiar faces and book shops and a supermarket that stocks sun-dried tomatoes and soy milk and cereal all in the one place and to go to the movies and the gym and let my cat curl up on my lap and walk the Bondi to Bronte coastline before brunch.

I’m thankful these feelings have come at the right time – with only 8 weeks of work to go I’m starting to plan for my departure and the next few months which will see me go from Dhaka to Sydney via Nepal, India, Egypt, Turkey, London, Amsterdam and Paris (purse permitting).

Until then I’ve got a sleight of visitors coming who I am sharing the Best of the Desh with. What better way to start to say goodbye?