Reflections on Bangladesh

In July 2009, Bradt travel guides will publish Bangladesh: The Bradt Travel Guide.
To begin promotion of the country as a destination, author Mikey Leung recently brought a small group of five international travel writers and travel agents to see the country with the assistance of Guide Tours.
What follows is some of their reflections.

Bangladesh is all about people.
For most travellers, the thought of visiting a crowded, impoverished Muslim country where a hard drink is hard to find and the majority of the landscape is flooded for months at a stretch seems like a real turn off. But this is a good thing, believe it or not: most tourist riff raff stay far away from Bangladesh's borders.

In reality, Bangladesh is blessed with the fact that it already attracts intrepid, well-seasoned and curious travellers: the kind who seek genuine, honest, and heartfelt interactions with real people. Whether filthy rich or dirt poor, each Bengali is imbued with a sense of duty that they should care for their foreign guests and introduce them at every turn to their cultural milieu, with all the hospitality they can barely afford, as anything less would be nothing short of rude. It is this single and simple fact that makes the attitude and culture of Bangladeshis so warmly remarkable and amazingly memorable.

And now I know I'm not alone in that conclusion.

"Looking at the news media in Britain, there seems to be very little that features Bangladesh," said UK-based travel writer Nick Redmayne. "When Bangladesh is headlined it's usually for the wrong reasons. It's quite heartening to come to the country and find there are good news stories in Bangladesh. It's quite pleasantly surprising to find people so welcoming, their approach is so relaxed. One of the pleasures I have from this trip is that I can go back to the UK and write positively about the experiences foreigners can have in Bangladesh."

"It seems to me the best thing is the people," added Canadian travel journalist Nicole Kobie.

“That everyone is so friendly, and no one is trying to go out of their way to rip you off. It helps because they're trying to help you find your way. Transportation can be a bit tough, but the people are great fun to be with."

Yet the undeniable fact remains: Despite these positive reflections, Bangladesh is still one of the least travelled places in the world and there are a few reasons for this that are well beyond the control of Bangladeshis or the people who write about them.

Firstly, the country isn't on the "hippie trail," as are its more well-travelled neighbours; Nepal and India scoop the bulk of the sub-continent's tourists. Secondly, there is no overland route between Thailand and India, facilitating backpacker travel, although a land crossing between Myanmar and Bangladesh is apparently in the works.

Finally, there is no Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat, and although a tiger-infested mangrove and the world's longest sea beach are fascinating, both are not stand-alone destinations grand enough to bring in tourists by the boatload. But one person on the trip believed that could change.

“I was really surprised," said Peter Zakrzewski, who works for Australia-based Intrepid Travel. "There are a lot of countries that have organised tours and Bangladesh seems to be on the forefront of that but there is not a lot of that here. It's a place that I'd heard a lot about in the news before, and usually places you hear about are places that have a beaten tourist track. Bangladesh, surprisingly, isn't. It's really refreshing to come here, get excited about it, but it's very untapped and real in that sense."

Fortunately, the world's misconception of the country means that people generally have low expectations before coming, and so the result is that they are often pleasantly surprised by something they didn't expect: the kindness of Bangladeshi people. It is inspiring to know that the so-called "poor people" on Earth would possess a culture of infinite small kindnesses.

"This country doesn't have massive stone monuments, but what they do have is a rich and deep culture, and amazing people that open up to you," Peter added. "They're inquisitive but they really give back in a real way. They'll ask about your country and then they'll share everything about their experience. It's more gratifying than seeing any stone monuments that any single person has erected to themselves, it's better to see a country full of people with pride in themselves and pride in their culture and country, and they're willing to take the time to show you that."

Without tourists or tour groups, what could be used to sell the Bangladesh travel experience to a well-travelled audience? For one of my visiting writers, it is that very fact that Bangladesh doesn't try to sell itself -- these touts often outnumber the tourists at India's famous attractions -- and that makes it attractive.

"My biggest impression is that there are actually no tourists here," added UK-based travel writer Jack Barker. "I mean, you've got a country of 140 million plus and probably only a few hundred tourists. It's really refreshing, it means you get here and people are pleased to see you. They're not yet familiar with the ways to relieve you of all your cash, and they're not quite sure who you are or what to do with you. That's quite refreshing."

And what about the floods? Just because a place is full of water, it doesn't become unattractive.

"The river transport has been a joy," said Nick. "I can think that Bangladesh would be a marvelous destination for anybody wanting to travel on waterways. This would be the place people could indulge their watery fantasies of travelling by launch or by the Rocket."

Jack came to Bangladesh specifically to experience the Rocket.

"I wanted to go on this paddle steamer that's been hammering around the delta for 80 years," he said. "That's much longer than I've been around which is already a long time. I've travelled to quite a few places in my time and Bangladesh, well, I don't know anybody else who has been here and it's very much a new and emerging destination. I wanted to see what it had to offer."

Jack was also an avid photographer. He commented that being able to photograph easily is a bonus in Bangladesh.

"There are places you can go where you point cameras around and taking photographs is actually a fairly intrusive thing," he said. "But in Bangladesh people seem to like it and welcome it. And the reception is really genuine and really welcoming."

Peter presented a warning. Yes, we all want an expansion in the number of visitors coming to Bangladesh, but tourists don't always bring positive influence to the places they visit. If people want the kinds of boozed-out, drug-fuelled beach holidays of Thailand or Goa, then they can simply go there. Bangladesh is the kind of place that demands travellers who have a genuine cultural interest and curiosity about Bengali culture.

"The danger is in the potential is to ruin it," Peter cautioned. "You don't want to flood tourists in here like anywhere else. Right now, there's a niche market of people who have travelled places before and are sick of the tourist track, perhaps people that have been to India a couple of times and are into the history and culture but want to experience a less mainstream destination would come to Bangladesh."

And, naturally, like every country, there are some things that visitors find very hard to get used to in Bangladesh.

During the course of this guidebook work, I've discovered times when it can be really hard going. Certainly, the high points come in the interactions with people you get in this country -- their casual curiosity is fascinating and very rewarding. But by that same token, moments of peaceful solitude, which might seem like a foreign concept to a Bangladeshi, have always been an integral part of my travel experience. This is a kind of moment where you feel like you have the whole place to yourself and you sense your freedom of the mind, body and soul. These moments are hard, but not impossible, to find.

In a city like Dhaka, there are even fewer moments where you can hide away in the maelstrom. It is honestly one of the hardest things that people who come from a privacy-orientated culture to come to grips with. And this is doubly worse if you're a female.

"You are going to be stared at, probably more than the men in your group," said Nicole, when pondering how she would advise others about the constant attention. "If you were with a big group of women you might attract crowds. But if you dress a bit conservatively and maybe buy a few local items to mix your wardrobe up, so that if you blend in a bit, and make an effort to fit their cultural standards, a little bit, then nobody will give you any problems.

"I don't know what it would be like to travel as a single female in this country," she added. "We did meet up with one girl who was volunteering out here and she seems quite happy to jump on the back of a motorbike or jump on the top of a bus and she's having no trouble. From the outside it looks like this country could be very difficult for a single female traveller, but I think once you're inside it and you kind of see the few things that you have to do to fit in, it's not very difficult at all. You're quite safe. There's no issue with women feeling insecure here."

The travel journalists have now returned home, and our journey in Bangladesh is now complete. As the time for publication comes nearer, I anticipate many episodes of trying to explain this little country to the rest of the world, a task I very much look forward to, on behalf of Bangladeshis and for all those simple kindnesses I have experienced here. For this, we offer our thanks -- or that gracious wag of the head that says volumes without speaking.

Mikey Leung is a travel writer.

Photos: Mikey Leung

You can learn more about Bradt's guidebook project by visiting http://www.joybangla.info, or e-mail [email protected] for more information.