Do you want to travel or are you just curious? We felt we may as well write about our travels and people we meet while we work on various poverty alleviation projects. While you are here, please view our work, and donate if you can so we may help more people. All the travel undertaken below is at our own personal cost - we do not use any donation money for this .
First you need to get to Bangladesh (Dhaka, or DAC in airline jargon). We found our tickets through www.ba.com (£565) though another good site is www.travelocity.co.uk (tick "my dates are flexible" for the best prices). Good airlines are British Airways for direct flights. All the others fly indirect, among which Emirates is good but pricey (£535 - £650). Avoid December if you can, as its peak season. Both these airlines don't require you to re-confirm your flights at the time of writing this - thats a bonus. Another airline that flies direct is Bangladesh Biman - sadly it is really unreliable and is facing bankruptcy - but it does offer a whopping 42kg in checked in luggage (BA only offered 22kg, and Emirates 35kg as of Dec 2007). If you want cheaper flights, then Air India will take you to Dhaka for about £400 - £440 return. Here is a clip of Emirates Airlines taking off from Dubai, destined for Dhaka - enjoy!
Sylhet ( April 2007)
Sylhet is a major city and district located in the north-east corner of the country, about 200km from its capital Dhaka. The majority of Bengali immigrants that reside in the UK and USA are from this city. Some of the popular tourist destinations in this city include the beautiful tea gardens, a breath-taking view of an area called Jafflong, and also of Madubkhanda. While in Sylhet , you can visit Sunamganj , which is a town about 8 miles from the Indian border. On a clear day you can see the mountains. And not to be missed, the leaking gas fires on the hills of Haripur that actually sprout out of the earth, literally!
One-way air fare from Dhaka (Banagldesh's capital) costs about 3000 taka ( approx £25 / $40) by GMG Airlines ( www.gmgairlines.com ) but our experience was that GMG are EXTREMELY unreliable and cancel flights at the last minute. Anyway, the flight itself is only about 35 minutes long, but add several hours for the journey to and from the airport,and in our case cancelled or delayed flights, so you are looking at about 4 hours minimum.
The same unreliability applies to Bangladesh Biman, the national airline.
However, GMG staff appear more courteus and helpful than Biman's (obviously some of their staff are good too, there are always exceptions), and GMG air-fares are cheaper and their customer service is the best. We would like to thank the GMG station manager based in Zia Airport (Oct 2006) - he was VERY helpful when our domestic flight was postponed for a few hours and offered to put us up in a nearby hotel so we could rest - free of charge. Now thats service! But we wont fly with them unless we have to - we will try Biman for domestic journeys if we have to.
The video we made below is a flight from Dhaka to Sylhet landing at Osmani (Usmani) International Airport by GMG Airlines in a Dash 8 turboprop (Canadian built). We filmed this in October 2006 and shots include the plane interior.
Osmani Airport is tiny, and still under construction. When you land there, SOME of the customs officials will
swarm around and appear helpful - they want your money. Be firm, be polite, say no. Same goes for the
helpful porters. It is good to help the poor, but we found that if you let them carry your bag, they
then refuse to accept a fair payment of 20 or 30 takas. They demand lots of money (100 taka or more) and
can make a scene which is the last thing you want in the heat. Besides, giving in to their high prices only adds to inflation and makes local passengers suffer in the long run.
So instead, we now choose to travel by coach. No ordinary coach, these are luxury, air conditioned Volvo/Scania coaches imported from Europe. The actual journey to Sylhet took 4 and a half hours on the motorway. The ticket (as of April 2007) cost 400 taka (£3 / $5) and you travel in style and comfort. Booking the ticket is easy as well, you can get a seat if you show up an hour before at the ticket office. Two such coach companies that are the best are GREENLINE ( www.greenlineparibahan.com ) and www.shohagh.com (photo on the left)
Booking tickets is very easy too. Just ask any rickshaw driver or hotel you are staying at for
directions to the booking office (office details are on the links to the company website above)
The photo on the right is the Motorway / Highway / Intersate, whatever you want to call it. This is the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway, an uninterrupted stretch of well maintained road. And no, its not a two lane motorway! We are actually on the wrong side of the road, overtaking. It is completely safe and normal - they all do it and the drivers appear to be somewhat of an expert at it too! All the motorways in Bangladesh look the same. It is a great improvement from how things were back in 1990.
Back in that era, Bangladesh was about 20 years old and it was gradually developing its infrastructure. The Dhaka-Sylhet Journey used to take about 8 to 12 hours. For one, the roads weren't as good, and secondly, the route wasn't a direct one - you had to drive through the winding tea garden roads of Srimangal. Plus, there wasn't any bridges to cross the several rivers that lay in the path - everyone travelling by road had to use ferries that were dirty and had a poor track record for safety - many a coach with passengers were lost in the murky waters. Plus, the coaches never stopped except at these ferries - that's when the men used the toilets which were extremely dirty. The poor women just held it in unless they really had to go because it was really filthy, unfortunately we don't have any photos to show you how dire the toilets were, you will have to use your imagination!
These days , there are no ferries on these new motorways. It is one long journey, and for convenience, the coach stops at new service station s as in the picture above (this particular one is called Ujon Bhatti on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway). They stop for about 20 minutes and the toilets are clean and usable and you can sit and eat some food.
As a tourist, however, it is never wise to eat anything on the road for fear of food poisoning. But you can drink HOT tea (water is boiled) and drink bottled water. Good, reputable brands are Mum and Fresh (make sure the security seal is intact) Mum is manufactured by partex limited . We have used both brands. There are many brands out there (some fake) , quality standards are not as strict as it is in here in Europe or USA, so we just stick to these two mostly (for now)
Anyway, you can carry some food with you - food you can trust, until you reach your destination. On the other hand If you are brave (or foolhardy), you can eat at these service stations , but who knows if and when your bout of diarrohea (delhi belly) will begin - is it worth the risk? One of our team recently found a length of hair in a burger at one of these service stops (we wont say which - as there are many service stations now) - use your own judgement when buying food..
In Dec 2007, we visited Ujon Bhatti service station again (some 9 months since our last visit - located on the Sylhet -Dhaka highway) and it really impressed us. The 1st floor restaurant is VERY clean and modern. Tea costs 10 taka, and you can order "parathas" (flat bread) for 12 taka a piece and a vegetable fried dish for 40 taka. It was all piping hot and very good.
Dhaka( April 2007)
Dhaka is the bustling capital of Bangladesh. Rickshaws , cars and people are everywhere. It is a congested city. Plenty to do, lots of restaurants and markets to visit.
Here is a video clip of a flight from Dhaka to London:
