Old Dhaka

On Friday afternoon, I went pearl shopping in Gulshan. I went to the same shop where Katie and I had stopped in a few weeks before. He remembered me, and started with surprisingly good prices for his products. After shopping for a little bit, I walked to Banani and got a delicious banana smoothie. It’s Ramadan, so I feel bad eating or drinking in front of people who are fasting, but I really needed something to drink. In Banani, I decided to try an experiment. My theory is that it is possible to rickshaw across the city by taking multiple rickshaws. Since I had some extra time (it was about 3 PM, and during Ramadan no one really does anything until they start to prepare for iftar around 6 PM anyway), I decided to try it out and took a rickshaw to Mohakali, but couldn’t get another to Farmgate so I gave up. I went to my LP’s house, ate iftar, and stayed the night.

On Saturday, I met Audrey to go to Old Dhaka. I took a rickshaw ride from my LP’s house in Farmgate to Dhaka University. I recommend touring Dhaka on a rickshaw, because it’s the most scenic way to travel, and is especially nice when there’s no traffic (i.e. sometimes the morning). Audrey’s bus was late, so I explored a bit of the Dhaka University campus. I wandered down some of the roads, and discovered exactly how close everything is in that part of town. I had the rickshawallah drop me off at the Shaheed Minar, then walked for 10 minutes to get back to the TSC where I was supposed to meet Audrey. A little kid was selling birds made of folded palm leaves. He said his big brother made them. I bought one because I was very impressed with its artistry, although I’m not sure whether it’s really supposed to be a bird or a shrimp. A ten minute walk down another road led me to Kazi Nazrul Islam’s tomb, the Dhaka University Art Institute, and the National Museum. I hadn’t realized that all of these places were so close to each other. Between the National Museum and the Art Institute, I found the Dhaka public library. At the Art Institute, there was a solo art show going on featuring these gorgeous modern art-style paintings. My favorite painting was an outline of a mosque that faded into nothingness, all painted in gorgeous rosy orange hues. Outside the art institute, I looked at the books being sold by street vendors, and was surprised to find a Bangla version of E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s Social Anthropology.

Audrey and I finally met up and took a rickshaw to Old Dhaka. We started out asking to go to _____, a bazaar that I had heard was a Hindu community where they made handicrafts. We made it most of the way there on a rickshaw, but then we decided to stop to check out a store selling rickshaw decorations. I bought a hand-painted piece of vinyl fabric that would normally cover the seat of the rickshaw. From there, we walked to Shakhari Bazar. It turned out that the bazaar was a place where they make and sell gold and silver jewelry. We got to watch several different methods. I’d like to spend more time there when I have time to document the process (and when I have several thousand extra taka to spend on jewelry). From there, we got a rickshaw ride to Shayambazar, which I had read was a spice market. The ride was very scenic, but it turned out that the spice market was actually a wholesale market – it was right by the Buriganga, where people are unloading boats full of produce transported from all over the country. We wandered back into the market, and everyone was really excited to see us. From the riverbank, the view was gorgeous. The people on the boats were waving to us to come for a ride, but Audrey wouldn’t let me. I took a few pictures, and soon enough everyone in the market wanted their picture taken. We ended up only spending ten minutes there, but it was a lovely ten minutes. Our next stop was going to be Chok Bazaar, but we decided to ask for Lal Bagh instead. I knew that the two places were just down the street from each other, and Lal Bagh is probably the most famous place in Old Dhaka. This rickshaw ride was about an hour and a half long, because we traveled through the length of Old Dhaka. We saw a lot of the old part of the city, however; I can’t stress enough how wonderful it is to take a tour on a rickshaw in Dhaka. We passed back through the Hindu bazaar, through the car district and the bicycle district (for some reason in Dhaka there are places where all the stores specialize in one specific thing), and ended up in an area with tons of tiny stores that each specialize in one item. There was a store selling only sugar, another selling raisins, many spice stores, and so on. After a while of this, we asked the rickshaw where we were. The answer was Chok Bazaar, so we got to see it anyway! It was crazy preparing for iftar, so we just stayed on the rickshaw and looked from there. I would like to go back when it wasn’t Ramadan. We arrived at Lal Bagh, where we got on another rickshaw and went to meet Sarmad and his brother for iftar. They took us to the Royal Hotel (which, funnily enough, is right around the corner from Lal Bagh), where we ate iftar. I was happy that I got to drink some more badam shorbot before I left Bangladesh! All in all, it was a great day in Old Dhaka.