Having seen Dhaka over the course of a few days, it was good to get out of the city
and see a different side of Bangladesh. We had so few days in Bangladesh that we'd
decided to choose one town outside Dhaka to base ourselves in, and do a little exploring
around the area. The town which we chose, in the end, was Bogra. We chose Bogra because
of its proximity to some interesting-sounding archaeological sites, as well as its relative closeness to Dhaka.
We headed to the bus station in Dhaka to get a bus up to Bogra. This was much morchallenging
than it had ever been to do this sort of thing in India, because there is not that much English
spoken in Bangladesh, and we didn't speak a word of Bangla, needless to say. Eventually helpful
passer by helped us locate a booth where we could buy a ticket on a bus to Bogra with one of the
many private bus companies operating the route.
and see a different side of Bangladesh. We had so few days in Bangladesh that we'd
decided to choose one town outside Dhaka to base ourselves in, and do a little exploring
around the area. The town which we chose, in the end, was Bogra. We chose Bogra because
of its proximity to some interesting-sounding archaeological sites, as well as its relative closeness to Dhaka.
We headed to the bus station in Dhaka to get a bus up to Bogra. This was much morchallenging
than it had ever been to do this sort of thing in India, because there is not that much English
spoken in Bangladesh, and we didn't speak a word of Bangla, needless to say. Eventually helpful
passer by helped us locate a booth where we could buy a ticket on a bus to Bogra with one of the
many private bus companies operating the route.
I think that he picked us a pretty good one; the bus was pretty modern and comfortable compared to all of the buses we'd been on in India. The other thing that we noticed on the journey was that the road was generally better maintained than the roads in India. As we passed through rural areas you could see people working the fields, occasionally with machines. This is something we hadn't really seen in India, where everything seemed to be powered by animals. It was a surprise to us that Bangladesh should seem more developed than India in a number of ways. On arrival in Bogra we had to get a pedal-rickshaw from the bus station into the centre of town. This turned out to be the cheapest rickshaw trip ever; it really makes you realise how little money people must have.
Some helpful locals found us a rickshaw and told the driver where to take us, and told us that we shouldn't pay more than 4 taka, which is about 7 US cents. The richshaw was heavily laden down with us, and our two big rucksacks, and the journey took around 20 minutes. The cheapness of the fare was just staggering. We paid the guy 10 taka, and he was still trying to give us change, which we refused. We had to try a couple of hotels to find a place which looked OK, but this was pretty easy. The hotel had satellite TV, and we were able to watch the English Premiership football, as we had been able to in India. The timezone difference meant that we could watch afternoon games in the evening after we'd got something to eat, which was very convenient..
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