Bangladesh

More wedding pictures will be added when the photographers finish editing the photos.

Back Story

The first stop to my amazing adventure is Bangladesh. You may be asking why I would want to go to Bangladesh, but it was actually for my good friend Masrur’s wedding. My initial reaction to visiting Bangladesh was “hell nahhh.” This was mostly due to the fact I was doing a bunch of research on the country and everything that I read online told me how dangerous of a country Bangladesh was. After reading about the terrorist attack in Dhaka around 2016 and looking at the cost to travel there, I was very close to crossing Bangladesh off my list. But since Masrur said that he wasn’t going to visit Bangladesh for a very long time, I knew that I couldn’t let this golden opportunity go to waste, so I said screw it and booked my flight.

Flight to Bangladesh

Let’s just say that the flight to Bangladesh was a whole new experience all together. The entire flight all together required me to fly to London – > New Delhi -> Dhaka and the layovers were quite short… I arrived to Pearson International Airport on March 4th around 6am and I was filled with so much anxiety that I couldn’t fathom to eat anything. So, the first problem starts when I board the plane as I was soon asked by one of the airline staff, “Do you have a visa to Bangladesh?” I said “no….” and was asked to step out of the plane while everyone on the plane was looking at me. She calls her manager to double check if I needed it, but I was confused because I knew that you didn’t need one until you got to the country. Eventually she said I was good to go and so I returned to my seat and met a guy from Libya through that incident. After landing in Heathrow, I had to run to make my New Delhi connection because the layover was only 1 hour and I did not know that the Heathrow airport was enormous (Don’t make the same mistake I did). Thankfully I was soon informed that the flight would be delayed for around another 50 minutes (phew).

The next problem is that there was an ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan (good timing) so the flights going to India had to go around Pakistan. This added another hour to the flight and in combination with the delay earlier, it only gave me 15 minutes to make my next flight to Dhaka. Unfortunately, I did not make it and I tried to talk to the Air India staff to help reschedule me a flight, but they were not helpful and I had to call 5 different numbers during the next 4 hours to try to reschedule myself to a flight (Phone bill was $200 after that). My next flight was scheduled for the next day in the afternoon and I needed to stay the night. I was also very sleepy as I didn’t sleep for 24 hours and my anxiety was off the roof. I heard there was a really nice hotel in the airport so I decided to try to book a room but soon realized that almost everyone who was delayed with me got a free hotel voucher except me. I tried to ask for a free hotel voucher as well, and after some complaining and waiting 3 hours in the lobby, I was given a room.

It wasn’t all bad since this incident allowed me to meet a friendly family from Toronto who told me about the hotel voucher, and I had a pleasant dinner with them at the hotel. They were heading to Sri Lanka to meet some family and their flight was pushed until later that night. I also met a 17 year old from Singapore who was offering me a limo ride around New Deli after 20 minute of talking to him. I didn’t know much about Singapore at the time but he said he lived in Sentosa island and was listing all these fun things to do in Singapore. I didn’t know how rich the guy was but upon doing some more research I found out that the houses in Sentosa Island look like this:

And one of the fun bars he was recommending me looks like this:

I finally made it to Dhaka and noticed a lot of flying insects in the airport, thinking that they were just flies (they were actually mosquitoes). Upon arrival, I had to get an on-arrival visa to enter the country which cost $51 USD but I only had $50 USD, so he accepted it anyways (oh well?). The custom official was also saying that he would make an exception for me because I didn’t have a wedding certificate on paper but it was on my phone. What makes things even better was that there was no wifi in the airport, so I couldn’t call Masrur. I asked one of the staff if I could use his phone and he was nice enough to do it but at the end he was like “Do you have tip for me?” I was baffled because this was the first time someone asked me for tip for making a phone call. I told him I had no money and after a little while, he let me go. I finally made it outside and the first thing I saw was a horde of people just at the gate ( It looked like a scene from the Walking Dead).

Day before the Wedding

Due to the missed flight, I lost a day of touring around the actual city of Dhaka. From what Masrur told me, the official wedding took place last year and this year was more of a cultural one. The wedding was the next day and Masrur did not have his suit because the airline lost his luggage. (He was able to pick it up the day I arrived but forgot his passport and his uncle had to bring it 😂)

I met Masrur and his uncle, Shutop, at the airport and we ubered to a mall to pick up a punjabi (Thank you Shutop and Masrur for the punjabi!). We also got a face massage at a Saloon which is a spa and hair salon (The cream he put on me smelled like hummus and he started slapping my face. You know the pollution is bad when there is a spa option for pollution removal). The biggest thing I noticed was how crazy everyone drives and how bad the traffic was. There was literally no road laws and you would see giant buses going 120km/h while you are trying to turn. Crossing the road was like rolling a die of life and death. One thing that I found really fascinating was the mass abundance of rick shaws everywhere. While I was in Bangladesh and not attending the wedding ceremony our main transportation would be using the rick shaw because it was so cheap and fun.

Before heading back to Masrur’s house, we stopped at a food vendor to try Bengali street food. It was called Fuchka and even though I got the one with less spice, my mouth was still literally on fire🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥.

The Sleepless Night

Once I’ve arrived to Masrur’s house I was greeted by his Mom, Dad and Uncle. They were really hospitable and provided a huge dinner for me, even though it was getting quite late. We all had to go the neighbouring city called Mymensingh early next morning, so I decided to sleep a little early. I was so happy I was finally able to get some sleep but then I heard a buzzing noise around my ear in the middle of the night. I thought I was dreaming in the beginning so I went back to sleep, but then I heard it again 10 minutes later, and then again and again. I saw the mosquitoes flying around but I couldn’t kill them as it camouflaged so well with the room every time I was looking for them. Since I still couldn’t find any mosquitoes, I tried to go back to sleep, while they kept buzzing. What made it even better was that I found a giant cockroach under my bed (I swear it was the size of my palm). I was fed up with the buzzing, so I just stayed up the whole night.

Here is the aftermath of my legs after a few days.

The ride to hell

The morning of the wedding ceremony, we all had to wake up ( I didn’t sleep) at 5am so we could leave by 6am since the traffic in Dhaka is horrendous. I was actually excited for the crazy car ride because there was so much action going outside that I couldn’t stop looking out. For example, there was a person on an elephant walking in the middle of the street and wild boars on a pile of garbage while the garbage was on fire. Unfortunately, during the ride, I got nausea from all the stopping in the car and had to endure it for the whole ride. The ride itself was actually supposed to take 2 hours in total but with how bad the traffic is in Dhaka, it actually took 6 hours. That was probably the worst car ride of my life.

Wedding Day

Even though I was lacking sleep, the wedding itself was an amazing cultural experience I will never forget. The wedding took place at the bride’s family property. They owned a large piece of land that had a primary school and their own mosque. What I found really interesting is that when there is a wedding in Bangladesh, they would put lights everywhere around the bride’s and groom’s property, and the surrounding neighbourhood.

Bengali weddings usually have around a few hundred people. So, there has to be an abundance of food prepared for everyone. One of Masrur’s uncle showed me around the back kitchen and how they would cook large portions of food in these huge pots.

It was really different to be the only minority in a country as I’ve gotten many stares and got approached by many people asking me where I came from (There is actually a substantial amount of Chinese population living in Dhaka because there is a lot of Chinese workers and they would bring their family over but still 95% Bengali). I’ve also seen like zero tourists throughout my stay in Bangladesh. During the wedding, I met a lot of amazing people, and many of Masrur’s uncle were explaining all the wedding traditions to me during the wedding and just telling me about the country. I was also able to perform the turmeric ritual on Masrur and Tasmia where I would apply turmeric on their forehead and feed them sweets (I don’t know how they eat so many sweets).

Mudslide

After the wedding in Mymensingh, we headed back to Dhaka. Unfortunately, the next day, I got food poisoning (I think) and everything was coming out of me like the Niagara Falls. It got so bad that Masrur had to go out and buy electrolytes for me because I was so severely dehydrated. Luckily, Masrur’s dad was a retired professor for medicine so I was in good hands if things went South. Masrur’s mom even made some Bengali porridge, which tasted very similar to the Vietnamese dessert, Che Dau Trang. It didn’t help that I got sick of Bengali food because it was a bit too rich for my stomach.

Reception

The last part of the wedding was a more traditional western reception, where people had to wear suits and it was at a beautiful reception hall that was huge (There were 1000+ people coming). The reception hall took place at a military golf course hall, and Masrur’s family was actually having difficulty booking the hall because it was wedding season, but one of Masrur’s uncle was an ex general in Bangladesh, so he was able to hook them up (I was actually stopped from going in by one of the military guards 😂). There were waves after waves of people sitting down, eating, and then leaving – it was a pretty surreal experience. The whole building also smelled like mosquito coil because there were that many mosquitoes 😔. Due to my food poisoning, I couldn’t eat as much food as I would have liked because my stomach was still feeling unwell and using the washroom was like feeding season for mosquitoes.

Blood suckers

Before leaving Dhaka to go to Taipei, Masrur’s family took me to their Uncle’s place near the airport to hangout until my flight. The only problem was that there were a bunch of blood sucking mosquitoes trying to eat the only foreigner in the room. I was talking to one of the Uncles, and I felt bad because I was touching my leg the whole time while I was talking (He said they weren’t mosquitoes but I knew there clearly were). I tried going to the bathroom but there were so many in there that I just quickly went out of there. Eventually they called an uber for me and I went to the airport, but I noticed there was a line getting inside the airport… So, I was fed up with the amount of mosquitoes already outside and I really wanted to escape it by going inside. One of guards at the airport told me that if I paid him a certain amount of money, I would be able to skip the line. I did it but I paid him probably 75% of the amount he wanted because I knew he was trying to milk me for the money, and I really wanted to go inside. When I got inside the airport, I was asked for tip again because some guy volunteered to help me write down my immigration sheet (I should have known better at this point). Once inside, there were as many mosquitoes as outside and they were all going after me (of course). I noticed that there were a few people smiling at me while I did my mosquitoes dance. While going on the plane, the stewardess had a mosquito swatter in front of the doors, killing mosquitoes like she was Hodor before he died 😢 but there were still quite a few mosquitoes on the plane. They even had to spray insect repellent in the plane while we were sitting. During the plane ride, I did meet a really nice guy from Bangladesh, who was living in Kuala Lumpur for school, and we exchanged contacts for when I go to KL.

Verdict

Culturally, Bangladesh was an amazing country with very hospitable people (other than the airport staff). Food was amazing, and I’ve never tasted so many flavours that were so foreign too me. It was definitely a very challenging country, due to many circumstances, but it was something I do not regret doing. Masrur, if you are reading this, I hope you and Tasmia have a everlasting marriage! Thank you for having me at your house and at your wedding! Also, thank you Masrur’s family for taking care of me so well!!!!