Bangladesh Traveler

There is a scene in the 1968 movie adaptation of “Around the World in Eighty Days” that is seared in my childhood memory. It is the scene set in colonial India, where Phileas Fogg (David Niven) and their elephant-borne party help the young widow, Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) escape a ritual act of suttee. Terrified as I was in that movie-moment, contemplating the immolation of the widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, I also distinctively recall the intense…

When traveling in rural Bangladesh, it is not always easy find somewhere to eat…or at least not somewhere that appealed to my foodie sensibilities. Fresh fruit from a roadside vendor was often the more attractive option.
One day, en route from Gaur to Paharpur, we stopped in a dusty town to buy fruit and cucumbers for lunch. We then pulled over, further down the road in a sleepy village near the water pump to eat our fruit. Ever conscious of hygiene …

I had never heard of Gaur before our hastily planned trip to Bangladesh, but knew instinctively it was a place we wanted to visit. For Gaur was once one of world’s most populous cities and the prominent capital of Bengal for centuries. Then it all but disappeared! Today, the ancient city ruins are dotted across a wide expanse of rice paddies and mango tree orchards in a landscape so rustic, it’s hard to imagine what this great metropolis …

Downstream from India, the main distributory of the mighty Ganges changes its name as it flows into the delta towards the Bay of Bengal. Here, Hindu’s most sacred river has always been known as the Padma – Sanskrit for “lotus flower.” At the city of Rajshahi, the Padma also defines the north-west border of Bangladesh, and we were in town to visit friends.
I had this idea that I wanted to dip my feet in the Padma, but had imagined taking …

সোমপুর মহাবিহার – Splendid Paharpur – 帕哈尔普尔
Ask any Chinese about “Journey to the West 西游记,” and they all know this literary classic written in the Ming Dynasty by Wu Cheng’en 吴承恩. It’s also the inspiration behind the legend (now modern-day movie,) “The Monkey King.” But the real story dates back to 629-645AD, when the pious Tang Dynasty monk, Xuanzang 玄奘, traveled the Silk Road to India. In a quest to learn more about Buddhism …

Last week, Wei and I returned from two amazing weeks in Bangladesh (including a few days in Kolkata). At the long-standing invite of friends, we chose Bangladesh, cognisant that we knew so little about the world’s 8th most populous nation. Yet this beautiful country “wowed” us with some of the most authentic travel experiences ever, as it attracts fewer than 100,000 visitors a year (and most of those aren’t even tourists)…