Big couple of weeks in Dhaka

The past couple of weeks have been very busy and full of surprises, some good, some not so good. The following is a quick run down on all the things that have occured in the space aof about 10 days:

• Thursday 15th - Moved into my new apartment (not the best but it will do for now until Lett arrives). My Ayah (cook/house maid) Tonika also oficially started with me on the same day.
• Friday 16th - My second driver (I sacked the first one) quit on me because I couldn't or rather wouldn't pay him the exorbident wage and benefits thaat he had become acustomed to after working with various Embassy staff for many years.
• Saturday 17th - Woke up aand decided, Stuff It, I don't want to go through all the hassle yet again of hiring another driver, so I will bloody well drive myself (God help me, on the worst roads and worst drivers on the face of the earth). On the same day a young lady turned up at my door saying she was my Ayah (her services are included with the apartment), aand if I decided that I did not need her services, which I don't it would haave meant that she was out of a job and she became very upset at thaat prospect, so needless to say with me being a softie, I now haave 2 Ayahs working for me (every guys dream I guess).
• Sunday 18th - Travelled down to Matlab to meeet with my staff there (approximately 30) and other senior icddr,b staff. Was meant to go down and baack by boat but due to heavy rain in the morning we had to go by car. It took us almost 3 hours to travel the 85 off km's down to Matlab, which isn't too bad by Bangladesh road travel standards, but it too 6 hours to get back. In fact we covered the 55 km's to outskirts of Dhaka in just over 2 hours, but it then took 4 hours to travel the last 30 or so km's. Bloody horrific, and to top it off, wheie we were waiting in one of the maany traffic jams, the were hit by the big (6.8) earthquake that hit the Himalaya's. However, it was lovely to be out in the countryside even for a few short hours. It is truly beautiful outside of big dirt Dhaka. I have included a couple of photos.
• Monday 19th- I was acosted by 2 police officers in my car after having just driven out of the icddr,b gates, whom then proceeded to extort money from me. They were demanding 10,000 Taka for some crime that I supposedly committed, and in the end I paid them 2,000 Taka just to get them the hell out of my car.
• Wednesdaay 21st - My first driver showed up on my doorstep saying that if I took him back he promised to serve me for the rest of his life and give his last drop of blood in doing so. Unfortunaately my soft touch was all used up by then and so I sent him away.
• Thursday 22nd - I booked all of mine and Lett's flights and other travel arrangement for December when I will return to Darwwin to pick up my 3rd Ayah.
• In between all of these other happenings, I haave met a lot of really great people, staarted learning Bangla, and finaally sorted out my membership with the BAGHA club.

Tonight I am off to Charlotte in the US for work for a couple of days, so I decided tto stop off in New York for a couple of nights on the way home.

Oh for a good coffee

The last good cooffee that I had was in Melbourne before leaving Australia some 4 weeks ago, so I am now hanging out for something that even resembles a Cafe 21 latte. I have told on very good advice that there is a extremely good coffee shop in Gulshaan 2 Circle, but I have yet to locate it. So, this morning after having my normal Maxwell House with powdered milk special at breakfast, I went back to my room determined to go and find that bloody coffee shop, hoping that it would be one of the very few shops that were actually open. So after waiting for my room to be cleaned, I got dressed in obligatory knee length shorts (anything higher will bring looks of utter disdain from the die hard Muslims), and set off up Gulshan Ave towards the circle. I would have been flat out walking 500m before it started to rain, just lightly at first, but then heavier and heavier until it was a typical Bangladesh monsoon downpour. With very little protection to stand under (the shops here do not have awning over the footpath like in Australia) I was starting to get pretty damn wet, And of course I had a multitude of rickshaw pushers, and taxi drivers pulling up to offer their services to what they no doubt saw as a dumb westerner walking in the raain without an umbrella, but I was was determined to make sure thaat I went for my daily walk, which is just about thee only exercise that I am currently getting. Then as usual when they can't convince you to get on board, they offer to take you to a lovely Banglaadesh lady who will keep me happy, or get me some very good gunja to also make me happy. Forget about this being the land of purity and high morals as you can obtain anything here that you can in the west it is just a bit more hidden and probably a lot more seedy E.g., I have been advised that many of the picture theatres that show Bollywood movies are in fact Porn movie theatres, apparently every movie starts out as a Bollywood movie, but then part way through the original movie cuts out and a porn movie comes on in it's place.

Anyway I finally made it to the Westin Hotel where I could at least get under cover and out of the rain. I even thought about just going in there for a coffee and their famous brunch, but all westerners are welcome there, I didn't feel very comfortable going in looking like something that the cat had dragged in. So I waited 20 minutes or so for the rain to die down (at least here I was assured of not being humbugged by beggars or rickshaw drivers as they are quickly ushered away by the armed guards at the front door). So off I went agaain to the circle, but after 15 minutes of fruitless searching, I figured that this coffee shop was either a cruel hoax and didn't reallt exist, or that my powers of seek and find were about as good as a woman's power to read a map. So dejectedely I headed for home again, but then I had a very bright idea and crossed the road to the Gulshaan 2 market were I found that the Swisss Bakery shop (Mr Baker) was actually open, so after buying a couple of very tasty looking things, I then headed down to Agora (Bangladesh's minituarised version of Woolies), where to my surprise and relief I foundsome of those packet Latte and Cuppacino things, plus I stocked up on other snack foods (I even found some Sars on the shelf - you take pot luck as to what is on the shelf each time you visit). So although I wasn't sitting down to enjoy a Cafe 21 latte and lemon cheese cake, I figured I haadn't done too bad, and so off home I set.

On the way up to the circle, I heard what sounded like a very big motor vehicle crash somewhere back down the avenue towards Gulshan 1 circle, but when I looked around, I couldn't see anything because of the heavy rain. But when walking back down the avenue, I came accross the remnants of the accident, which was a medium sized bus that was completely stoved in on the front LH corner (see photos below). Judging by the amount of damage, I can only imagine it had hit another bus or a truck, but where the other vehicle was I have no idea. The odd thing was that it was parked facing the wrong way up the aaveenue which has a concrete wall down the centre  that sepaarates the north and south bound lanes. My guess is that the bus has come out of one of the side streets onto Gulshan Ave wanting to turn right (head south) at a point where you cannot turn right because there is no break in the centre island, but rather than turn left and go further up to where there is a break in the island and do a U turn, the driver has decided to turn right anyway and travel the wrong way into oncoming traffic until he found a break in the island to allow him to cross over to the south bound lanes, but has not quite made it. You frequently see rickshaws and taaxis pulling this stunt (usually when you are in the bloody thing), but not buses, but as I said in a previous post, a lot of the buses are piloted by kids with no licence and no understanding of road rules, or the need to keep their passengers safe (they are very brave but not real smart). Looking at the aftermath, it's hard to imagine the Bus Waller who hangs out the door, having survived. One of the reasons that sso many people die and get seriously injured when the buses do crash is that the buses literaally disintegrate due to them having had so many patch up repair jobs in the past and being riddled with rust so that there is nothing holding them together.

I also took a photo of the Police paddy wagon that was just leaving the scene when I got there (take a look at the condition of it - sure wouldn't want to be in a high speed chase. The police in Baangladesh are under trained, under paid, under manned, under equiped, riddled with corruption, and totally ineffective, such that the public neither trust them, nor respect them. Which is why the public so often takes the law into their own hands resulting in suspected robbers and mrderers often being beaten to a pulp by mobs of angry locals, resulting in serious injury and frequent deaths.

Anyway I finally made it home at about 1:00pm (bit paast morning smoko time), but nevertheless sat down read my Australian Shooters magazine and had a coffee and cake.

       

Help is at hand

Well after sacking my first driver due to his inability to not hit pedestrians and other cars (I think he managed to at least bump someone or something on every single drive that he ever did with me), plus his total lack of knowledge of Dhaka's streets (I who have lived here all of 4 weeks, knew how to navigate around Gulshan better than he did). Come early next week, I should have a new driver and a new Ayah (cook and bearer). Both of whom were referred to me, and after having looked at their CV's and references, it looks like I will end up with 2 very experienced and reliable people.

The Ayah that I have hired, whose name is Tonika, was referred to me by the Ayah who works for aa friend Mark Peitroni who is the Director of Medical Services at ICDDR,B. When Tonika came to the guest house yesterday to meet with me, I was immediately impressed by in fluency in speaking and understanding English, and her very cheerful and polite disposition; and even more importantly she is able to cook both western and Bangladesh food.  She came highly recommended by previous employers, most of whom have been senior executives with International Organisations and Embassies, including one of our own Board members. Tonika will start with me as soon as I have found an apartment, which I am hoping will be within the next 2 weeks. Her salary will be 10,000 BDT per month (approx $125 AUD), increasing to 14,000 ($175) when Lett arrives (although I am sure that when she finds out how much Lett eats and how messy she is, that she will want a lot more money).

My pospective new driver, who I haven't yet met nor actually hired, called Kalu, and has been driving for over 20 years for numerous high ranked internationals, including the former Director of Information Services with ICDDR,B. As with Tonika, Kalu also comes highly recommended, and so if I can arrange to meet with Kalu early next week, and if he seems like the right guy for me, I will hire him and thus have my help all sorted. The only thing I theen need is a apartment and a car for them to clean and drive (my current car was badly damaged when my previous driver ran into another car on Mondaay afternoon).

The standard salary for a good driver is between 8 and 10,000 BDT, which means that to begin with, the total cost of having a cook, cleaner, driver and bearer will be around 20,000 Taka per month (around $250 Aus). How come wives and girlfriends back in Australia are unwilling to work for such a princely sum? Very selfish I think!

PS. Looking at the unbelievable size of some of the houses around Gulshan 2 and Baridhara, all of which belong to very wealthy Bangladesh naationals, they must have an army of Ayahs to keep them clean. I have been told that many of these house, which often take up to 1/4 of an entire city block, have anything up to 20 bedrooms and bathrooms. God knows why, maybe the Owner's entire extended family live with them. In size, if not style, I am sure many of these houses would rival many of the mansions around Hollywood. I have included below some photos of one such house that is just behind the apartment that I am currently looking at leasing. This one is at least sort of contemporary in design, unlike most which are really bad imitations of old Georgian or Edwardian houses from England and the US southern states.

Potential new home

I have started negotiations for an apartment in Gulshan 2. It is only one street away from Gulshan 2 Cicle where there are lots of shops, cafe's and restuarants, including the DCC 2 Market which has the Aussie Butcher and Swiss Baker shops. It is immediately behind the Egyptian Embassy and also very close to the Netherlands and German Embassies. It is on the 4th floor and has views to Gulshan Lake and over the gardens of the Egyptian Embassy. It is also very close to the Gulshan Ladies Park, and Gulshan Lake, both of which have walking running tracks aaround them, which will be good for taking Benny for walks.

Main Bedroom

Views over Egyptian Embassy

Living area

Bangladesh style kitchen (note there is no stove or oven, just a gas cooker on the bench, this is standard practice)

 

The following photos are of Gulshan Ladies Park

This is the Gulshan Ladies Club, which was originally estaablished by the wives of diplomats and other expats living in the Gulshan area, which is where almost all of the Embassies and High Commissions are located.

   These are the park rules, which I am sure no one follows, although there is security and police in and around the park, making it quite safe to go walking or jogging, unlike in the streets.

Nothing like a cool Ice Cream on a hot afternoon

 

Various pictures around the laake, Note the beautiful tradional clothing on both the boys and girls. The photo above also shows some kids swimming in the lake (it might be cleaner than other lakes and waterways around Dhaka, but I sure still wouldn't want my kids swimming in it).

Rickshaws gathered aaround the entrance to the park, dropping people off or waiting for a fare.

Dhaka Architecture and Engineering

With a few notable exceptions such as the Parliment House and a couple of the 5 Staar hotels,, the design of buildings here in Dhaka leaves a lot to be desired. They try hard, and some of the new buildings do have a western flavour about them, but it's scary when you see what is under the facade (i.e., sub structure, and the building services). There is a major lack of skilled local trades, and so much of the workmanship is a long way from what we expect in the west. The following photos show various new and old buildings areound the area where I am living.

No building in Dhaka is truly ever finished, because they nearly always leave reo starter bars hanging out of the top, and the sides (just in case they want to extend sideways or upwards at a later date). They also never wait until a building is finished before moving into it i.e., you often see a multi storey building under construction, with upper floors being barely more than a shell, while the lower fllors are filled with offices or people living in them, The workers nearly always live on the site also, which means that by the time it is properly occupied it has been already well and truly lived in, and nothing looks new (remember the saga of the Delhi Olympic Athletes Village).

  This is a display village near where I am staying. It was built by BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Aid Cooperative), and is intended to show old shipping containers can be used as low cost and strong housing that can be built on stilts to protect against floods. It's actuallu pretty amazing.

This is a islamic style mansion built on the edge of a waste land, and beside a slum area (who knows why they chose to build here, although they probably already owned the land and couldn't afford to buy land elsewhere as land in Dhaka is both scarse and very expensive). The normal practice over here is for developers to go to land owners and offer to build on their land and in return they owners get a very handsome price, plus they will also usually get around half the units or fllors (in the case of an office building), including the top floor for their own apartment.

  This is one of the very few, what I would call modern design buildings in Dhaka. It even has proper scaffolding instead of bamboo, and the only tower crane that I have seen in Dhaka.

This is a cocktail bar just around the corner from my Guest House, the only problem is it doesn't have any alcohol. I was told that it was designed to look like a Swisss Chalet as the facade is made up of timber logs (it's amazing to see the difference between actual western or foreign design and what the Bangladeshi's view of what western design looks like). 

This believe it or not is the formwork for a new bridge that when finished will carry thousands of vehicles every day.



The streets of Dhaka are eerily quiet

We are now in the middle of the Eid holidays and the streets of Dhaka are unbelievably quiet, in fact many of the smaller streets and roads are virtually deserted, it's rather eerie. However, it certainly makes going for a walk much easier, and I am enjoying the peaace and quiet, with all the horns honking, sirens wailing and thousands of people, Dhaka streets are normally very load.

On the way home from work on Tuesday, my driver hit yet another car. I can not remember a single journey that I have had with him as driver when we haven't managed to hit a car, or a pedestrian, or a rickshaw, the difference this time was that the entire front bumper was ripped off, thus making the car pretty much undriveable for the long weekend, so happy I am Not. In fact I was so angry with him by the time we got back to the guest house, that I could hardly talk to him. He obviously knew that this was the end of his job, which is hard, because it's not as if he meant it and jobs are so hard to come by, but he came to me saying he was a good driver and knew his way around Dhaka very weel, neither of which are true. He came to the guest house this morning saying that he would pay to have the damage repaired, which I rejected because the vehicle belongs to ICDDR,B and so all repairs must be done through their contractors. He asked me about his job, and all I could tell him was that it wasn't working out and so I would pay him what he was owed up to Tuesday, and that he would need to find another job - not nice, but necessary as I need to feel safe when being driven around, and I sure didn't with Hala at the wheel.

So, without a car to go driving anywhere, I went for a long walk this morning, through a part of the city, that I have been through before, but only by car never on foot, and so it gave me the opportunity to see things that you miss when driving, take some photos (see below) and smell the nice and not so nice smells of big dirty Dhaka.

Believe it or not, there is a lake beneath this carpet of green (you can just see some water between the buildings at the very end in the last photo). This is actually the other end of Banani Lake, which is the lake in the photos on my previous post.

 

This photo shows the beautiful colours that so many of the Bangladesh women and children wear, which outrages many of the Muslim clerics, because the Quran says that women must dress in a manner that does not bring undue attention to themselves, meaning, no bright colours, not too tight, and only the face and hands uncovered.

 

Walking the streets of Dhaka can be very dangerous because in addition to trying not to get run over by a ricksahw, car, bus or truck; there are numerous trip, slip and fall hazrds, including almost every manhole and pit cover either missing completly as in this shot, or so badly broken that you dare not step on them. Believe me, you do not want to fall into one of these holes, many of which are very deep (I estimated this one to be about 3 metres to the water below), and contain stuff that you really don't want to be swimming in.

 

When you hear people say that the bus drivers in Bangladesh are the worst in the world, they are not exagerating. Many of them are driven by kids as young as 13 or 14 years who have no understanding of road rules let alone a drivers licence. It is estimated that up to 20,000 people die every year on Bangladesh roads, many of these in buses. It's a huge problem that is getting more dificult by the day, and the government is not only sanctioning what goes on, they are a part of it. One of the senior ministers was recently found to have issued almost 50,000 licences to people without any test, and some of who were as young as 12 years old, but he excused it by saying that so long as they can tell the difference between a goat and a person, what else does a driver need to know. To make matters worse every time, the government or police try to do something, the bus and truck operators all go on strike, forcing the government to back off. The bus in this photo is believe it or not a highway coach, and in comparison to many of the buses on the road is in reasonable condition. At least it has most windows intack, has lights (whether they work or not is another matter), and does not look like it has yet been rolled over. Note also the 'Exclusive Business Class' sign on the rear window, imagine if it was Economy Class?

 

Unlike in the west, where buses stop on the side of the road to drop off and pick up passenger, in Dhaka, they literally stop anywhere on the road, frequently in the middle of multi lane main roads such as in this photo which is very near to the entrance of the ICDDR.B centre where I work. This is a very quiet day, but on a normal working day, there are literally hundreds of buses and rickshaws all stopping at this spot which is where 3 main raods all converge - it is a nightmare.

 

Some more photos of buses, which apart from again showing the wonderful condition of buses in Bangladesh, also gives an idea of how many people they manage to cram inside; again remembering this is a very quiet day, on a normal day it is not unusual to see people on the roof and hanging out of the windows. All women and children must stand at the front of the bus) even if there are spare seats or standing space at the rear), which of course means that in the event of a head on collision (very frequent), they are the first to die (good to see chivalry at work). Note also the Bus wallers who hand out the door of the bus, taking peoples fare money, dragging them onto the bus while still moving, and indicating to other vehicles what the bus is doing e.g., turning or stopping, or just coming into your lane so back off. They are aamazing adept at what they do, but they probably have a life expectancy less than a tail gunner on a WW2 bomber.

 

There are 3 things that Bangladesh has an almost endless supply of; sand, water, and people; and as such pretty much everything involves at least 1 of these 3 things in some form or another. For instance the only thing available as land fill is sand, which means that half of Bangladesh is built on a sand foundation, and with the exception of traditional thatched huts, most other buildings are constructed using bricks. It is amazing how many uses bricks have in Bangladesh, because apart from their obvious use they are also used to fill potholes by crushing them up and mixing with sand, and because Bangladesh has almost no stone, they area also broken up and used as aggregate in concrete and asphalt. And beacuse of the abundance of people, everything is done manually, including the crushing of brick and rock for aggregate. The streets sre full of brick crushers such as the lady in the photo. Note all of the full bags of brick chips beside her.

 

 I forgot, the other thing that Dhaka has no shortage of is garbage, and because the system of garbage removal is rudimentary to say the least, it is just thrown into the streets and waterways and just builds up into big piles on virtually every street. The Dhaka City Corporation pays rickshaw pushers to go around collecting what they can. They then take it to central dumpng points (still on the street), where it is shovelled into trucks and taken awy, or at least most of it is. The one saving grace is that almost everything has some recyclable value, which means that all of the piles of garbage are picked clean of anything worth anything (plastic bottles, cans, any sort of metal, clean paper etc), which reduces the amount of garbage at least a little bit. These photos show what the rubbish in the streets looks like, the rickshaw garbage bins, and the bigger garbage trucks. Not pretty and smells bloody horrible.

These are some photos of Gulshaan 2 Circle, which is Dhaka's equivalent to New York's Time Square and London's Piccadilly Circus. It's very close to the apartment that I am looking at renting.

 

 These photos show how deserted the strets are over the Eid holiday (it was really weird walking around). The last one is Dhaka's version of a road house.

 

This is Wonderland, Dhaka's Dreamworld. It is the only place of it's type in Dhaka, which makes it extremely popular with families on weekends and holidays. It's a sad excuse for an amusement park, but better than nothing. Unfortunately like so many other things, they just don't have the money to keep anything maintained.

 

These photos of Gulshan Aven ue which links the city centre with the posh residential areas of Gulshan, Banani, and Baridahra. It also runs through Dhaka's financial centre.  The last photos is of the Westin Hotel, which is a 5 star hotel (rooms start at $300 per night).

These photos show an area behind Gulshan which is being filled in (with sand of course) to build on. The filling in of all these areas is one of the reasons that Dhaka is suffering much more from flooding now than ever before (the water has no where to go, and far too little storm water drainage is put in because of the cost).