So late at night I took the train up to Dinajpur. It was meant to leave at 8pm, but in true Bangladesh-style the train was a mere 4 ½ hours late. I went home after buying a ticket rather than waiting in the sweaty hot station in the dark and returned by CNG about 2 hours later. I changed out of my normal sarong into capris - I figure when travelling around at night it’s better if I put people off as much as possible, lol.
The wait at the station (yes, I still waited… they said the train would (late already) arrive at 11pm, but it was 90 minutes after that) was the usual sideshow. Me sitting around doing nothing, a schwack of people sitting around watching me doing nothing.
The good thing about always being on everyone’s radar is that there’s always someone to tell me when it’s time to go. So, the train arrived and I found my way to my car. I paid for a sleeper class ticket. This particular train was not the least bit fancy; 2 people to a car, one bunk up and one down - me and a businessman.
The train staff came in and brought blankets (well, a “pillow” and a sheet, which was fine for me) and about 15 minutes after that I was tucked in on the top bunk and trying for sleep. The train was Unbelievably noisy, and beyond the normal clackity-clack I am quite certain we stopped ever 12 minutes, but I did manage to sleep off and on over the following six hours. When the sun started to rise I was awake, still tucked under my sheet and trying to see out the window… the window didn’t reach up there where I was, so I had to kind of lay on my side, face squished against the mattress sideways, and even then I could only really see out the top 3 or 4 inches of the window.
What I saw was beautiful, incredible shades of green covered in thick morning dew, or maybe a heavy rainfall overnight. I changed into a sarong again and quietly slipped out of the sleeper car so I could have the windows… I was SO glad that I did, it was breathtakingly beautiful…
Misty fog rolled in the distance, the sun barely over the horizon, enough light for the greens and yellows to sparkle under their dewy cover. I sat in the open doorway, feet on the step and sometimes dangling, and I loved it. Wind rushing by blowing in my face, incredible views flying out the door, it was wonderful! I took a few videos, and smiled to myself as I kicked my feet like a kid whose feet couldn’t reach the ground when seated (handy, I didn’t lose my flip-flops!), I was happy right to the tips of my toes and no longer cared about the late night, the jerky ride, the lumpy bed, or the late train - none of it mattered it was all worth it for that very moment.
My friend Uttam texted me a few times while I was on the way, and rather than arriving at 5:05am like the original schedule we pulled in around 9:30am, haha, just a weeee bit late but he was there waiting for me. We grabbed a rickshaw to a hotel up the road, one his uncle owns, and I took some time to shower and change my clothes so I could go about the rest of my day.
After about half hour I went out and the manager told me that Uttam had needed to run out for a bit, but that he would be back in an hour and that I should wait in my room for him. Now if you know me, the fact alone that this man (smiling and friendly though he was) basically stood in front of the exit to the hotel and told me to go to my room and that I couldn‘t come out until given permission was enough to make me push back… if it’s dangerous outside, Of Course I’m going to listen, but if it’s because “no woman can exist without a man at her side,” forget it, I won’t do it, and that‘s what was going on here.
I tried polite at first, “thank you, but we both have cell phones, I will call him and let him know where I am but I am going to go walk around until he arrives“, then I tried straightforward, “I am an adult, and I’ve paid for my room - you can‘t make me stay in the hotel, I am going outside and I don‘t need your permission.”
No matter what I said he just kept insisting that I wait for the next hour until Uttam came back. I asked several times “why” I couldn’t leave (I had started wondering if perhaps Dinajpur was dangerous?), but we had major communication problems that all just came back to him saying “I am your elder and you must do as I say.”
So, I did the only logical thing I could think of, short of crossing the line and shoving past him - I called Shahed, my “little Bengali brother” in the army, and explained the problem and asked him to please find out WHY I couldn’t leave the hotel alone. 3 minutes later I had the phone back and was waved politely on my way… Shahed said “I explain to him, ‘I am a soldier in the army, and she is my sister, so you must listen to me. She is always alone travelling, and this is not the first country she has been to, she is not like our Bengali women so you must let her alone - if there is trouble I will come for her.’ So, any problem, you must be calling me - okay? Now you can go.” I laughed quietly and shook my head, realizing that I was still “given permission” by a man to be out on my own, but at the very least it got me out of the house!!
I thanked my little brother very much and ducked out the door to walk up the road. Market stalls, tea stands, phone shops and appliance centers, it was the regular smattering of shops, the regular smattering of people, nothing or no one particularly bothersome. I had a cup of tea at one of the little spots, and then Uttam called to say he was on his way.
We met back at the hotel and walked over to his family’s home. I was invited inside and we had tea and cookies while I played with his 6-year old nephew Ammon… he brought me his schoolbooks where he had been practicing English vocabulary words in his very neat and cute curly-cue writing; Next came a workbook of nursery rhymes like “Hickory Dickory Dock” and songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle” so I sang a few of them for him and he was all lit up, making me twice as happy.
We had tea and chatted in the bedroom for awhile. I met both of his parents and his sister-in-law. Several neighbours came in while I was there to smile and stare silently from the doorway, sometimes talking quietly together behind their hands and with huge smiles. Then I met Sister Tracy, a Catholic nun who happened to be bustling by when Uttam grabbed her and said “we have a girl from Canada visiting in our home, come and talk to her!” She invited me to the convent the next day, and I told her I was looking forward to it - I hardly turn down an invitation these days! We took a few photos in the family’s home, and then it was time to go so we said goodbye.
From there we caught a rickshaw on the main road to get to the bus stand, he had decided that we would go out of town a ways and visit Kantanagar Temple. It was beautiful, and we ran into some of his family there so we visited awhile (they visited, I wandered around taking many pictures and having many photos taken).
After we finished visiting the temple we walked the 2kms to nearby Nayabad Mosque, and I was really glad that we did. The walk along through the village was nice (Uttam pointed out every 18 seconds “they are really enjoying to see you, everybody is smiling”) and requested several times that I take photos of people along the way.
At the mosque there were a few men there for prayer, and Uttam quickly made friends with them and they walked around with us - it was very nice. The mosque was cool, old built 250 years ago at the same time as Kantanagar temple (it was actually built for the men who were working to build the Hindu temple, so it was completed long before the temple, which took more than 20 years to finish). I didn’t go inside (I have only been inside one mosque since I arrived) but I enjoyed it very much from the outside and took tons of pictures, including a few with them.
After visiting the mosque we walked back up to the temple and had something to eat. Lovely leaves for plates, we found a small patch of shade and had some rice and vegetables. You know, I didn’t know you could GET food at a temple, but there you go!
From the temple we took an auto rickshaw back to town, arriving back around 6. We met again at 7 and walked around town, Uttam mostly showing off his new foreigner to his neighbourhood friends until she got cranky from lack of food about an hour and a half later (I thought we were going for dinner at 7, he didn’t tell me about his show-and-tell plan). At 830 I told him I was going to eat; he could join me or he could not, but I was going - enough.
Went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the New Hotel (which is very very old) and had fried flatbread (porata) and thick lentils (boot dal) and the BEST cup of tea I’ve had in Bangladesh… I asked for my regular ginger tea (adda cha) which they don’t usually serve, and rather than telling me no, they made me a cup in the kitchen - YAY!!
So of course after food and drink I was in much better spirits and I politely sat and visited with Uttam and his friends (I.e. got stared at and sat politely while they spoke in Bangla and smiled at me). I was back in the hotel in my lilac room around 10 and ready for sleep - what a great day!
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