On one hundred thirty-nine – of hundred and forty.
A summertime number of the Times, Dhaka was chosen as the penultimate of the life-worthy 140 cities. As it seems and different from Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney or Perth (1st to 4th place) underperform the criteria: air quality, infrastructure, entertainment options, green spaces or rest. Because places of interest somewhere else on the earth are a dime a dozen, our destination should be Dhaka itself at least for six days. This negative image seemed to draw us magically...
Six days sufficed only to get a first small insight into this wicked world but just after few hours we found the international reporting about Bangladesh is more than one-way and in our view completely unfair. Indeed, the unusual places of interest are fast checked, these are the local inhabitants who make this city unusual. Already at the airport with our arrival we noted that always a knot of people is around us. Never begging, never unpleasantly, never scrutinizing... Interests always and curiously.
During the first day the first impression was confirmed: Everywhere one will conceive friendly, welcomes, cheers, questioned, takes photos or interviews! From time to time touch small children, entranced by the bright skin color. Ours very likeable leader Pawrosh showed us during the first both days the Old Town, the dockyard, made a river round trip with us, presented the national monuments and museums to us, led us with an official leader by the parliament, about markets, shopping streets, university buildings and by a textile factory. Ambitious of our welfare! We could vary the program and did not have to be directed by a text-book. A very correct and entertaining contemporary with whom we divided very much with pleasure our time.
A student verbalized the situation of this mega city for us absolutely properly. “In the morning in Australia one goes from A to B and is returned in the evening with A again. In Bangladesh one already proceeds in an adventure before one A has left”. One can catch these experiences on the street and at the markets very badly in words, Dhaka is more than just a melting pot and a feisty juggernaut. It’s a system which cannot working by western graduations at all, but still everything seems to have in this unfathomable chaos an order and everybody his purpose has. We can only advise at this point urgently everybody to convince itself of these superlatives independently and to open oneself to the most densely populated territorial state. It’s worthwhile!
Besides, the team of The Lonesome Traveler was extremely thoughtfully to us: Pawrosh with a lot of good insider tips, local food possibilities and city excursions. Manzur by his everyday visits, interesting professional information and motherly phone calls every day. Holger by the great organization in the approach and the nice evening on his terrace below the approach path. And our driver, who did it in anytime to take us well and certainly to our destination in this labyrinth. It needs many days in Cologne to digest these lot of impressions. We are very happy to get a first impression of Dhaka and would come again any time!
Benjamin, Martin, Sebastian & Sebastian (in October, 2014)