Bangladesh I saw... (Part 2/3)

[Amigo]

At night...



The above two pictures... Such a contrast...



A Bangla disco?



Night market.



It was pretty cold in Bangladesh during the night... I had a jacket on, but I was only wearing a thin T-shirt inside...
During the night, they sell vegitables... not much meat... very busy. And scary.
I felt like an alien who has just landed in the middle of Manhattan. People were staring at me like I was crazy or something.
Earlier that evening, I booked a car from the hotel, to take me around for some sight seeing... I told them I wanted to take some pictures... night shots...
And they wouldn't take me anywhere... They were circling the nice buildings... like the convention centers and parks and their Prime Minister's house...
So I asked them to take me to a market. And they were trying to take me to some shopping center, so I told them I wanted to go to a fresh market.
They finally took me to a market, and they told me to be VERY careful of my camera and other belongs... I could not have been warned more strongly.
But they couldn't scare me... they thought I'd be mugged for sure, but I wasn't worried a bit.
I walked around their market... they were selling...



Tomatoes. If there is one thing that I saw more than the number of rickshaws in Dhaka, it's the tomatoes.
The people were laughing their ass off, seeing me taking the picture of their tomatoes...
It was weird...



But like I said, it was pretty cold, so when I saw a ... the above establishment, I had to stop for a cup of hot tea... with milk, please.



And while I was sipping on my cup of hot milk tea, the people surrounded me in double layers and shared names and hand shakes... I couldn't possibly pronounce their names correctly... and they did a terrible job of saying my name...
But the hand shakes were the same... firm grip. Warm touch. Sweaty palms...
Their hands were coarse as sandpaper... I'll bet they thought my hands were very soft.
And this one boy, came to me and gave me a califlower.



That was my only souvenir from Bangladesh... which I could not bring coz the stupid customs won't let me...
Anyway...
It was pretty hard 5 days... there were just too many hard stuff going on in Bangladesh... poor people...
But what can I do?
I can't give money to every woman and children who are tirelessly begging on the streets of Dhaka...
Anyway...
The tea was 5 TK, which is equivalent to say... 1 cent?... I gave the man 10 TK, and he gave me 5 TK change...
And I asked the califlower boy how much do I owe him, and he said nothing. The califlower was a gift.
I thanked him for the wonderful gift, and that's when my limo driver found me and dragged me back to the limo...
For a while, it felt so good...
These people... nice people. Poor but generous hearts... Look, they gave me a califlower for free!
But that pleasant sensation was short lived coz the boy who gave me the califlower ran to me and tugged my sleeves, and asked for money.
I refuse to think that he was begging. I would rather think that he wanted me to pay for the califlower. So I gave him 5 TK. That should cover a califlower.
It's a very ... frustrating thing... hard to explain...
My mind was all messed up by that breif stroll in the Bangladeshi market... And I needed a break from it all, so I told the driver to take me to a hotel.
Any hotel. That sells beer.
And we just happened to pass by the Westin Hotel, so I jumped off the car, and went straight up to the 23rd floor, where the bar was.



End of part 2...