Chittagong and the Hills Tracts, BANGALDESH

The political situation cooled down a bit but travel agencies told me "all foreign visitors" cancelled their trip to Bangladesh. I have been traveling around the country now for one week and have not seen a single White person - absolutely no Western tourists from what I have seen. This makes Bangladesh such special place....as their tourist campaign reads Visit Bangladesh before the masses of tourists arrive. Well...not sure if the masses will arrive anytime soon, but it sure is interesting to travel in a country with no other tourists around. People, particularly in the remote villages, seem to never have seen White people and I am treated like a movie star. As I walk through the streets (including Dhaka and particularly in the slums), people stare at me, hordes follow me, and really look at me in disbelief! Quite an amazing (often annoying) experience.

Visited the city of Chittagong on the west coast (2nd largest city) and with some tough diplomatic talk by my guide, we managed to get permission to visit the Ship Breaking Yards. This is the worlds biggest ship graveyard where old and tired ships come to die. Along a three km long shallow beach about 30-40 huge ships (in different states of dismantling) are "stranded". Here, hundreds of men aged from as young as 10 to as old as 70 or 80, spend gruelling long hours in the hot sun manually dismantling the ships. While I was not allowed to photograph any of the labourers, especially those under-aged (18), I talked with some of these kids who told me they get paid Tk70 (US$1) per day and work from 8am to 5pm. Most of the sites (all different owners) did not allow me to take pictures of any workers as this may show the poor working conditions. Absolutely no gloves, eye protection or safety helmets are to be found on the site. People break down huge ships with blow torches, saws and hammers.

With my special permission documents in hand my guide and I left for the Chittagong Hill Tracts (lakes and hill tribes). Our local chicken bus passed several police checkpoints where I (only foreigner on board...and probably in a 100 km radius) had to report and fill out their log book. Surprisingly all checkpoints knew I was coming (informed by their Dhaka office). To go on a boat trip around the huge man-made lake Kaptai to visit several local hill tribes, I had no choice but to accept five heavily armed policemen as my guardians. So with the five policemen by my side, plus my guide, and the local village guide, and my boatman, we were an entourage of nine people going from village to village. You can't image the amount of (totally unwanted) attention we attracted. Visited several family homes, ate locals snacks. My planned visit to the Chakma King did not go too well as the King was on a Dhaka visit. The Chakma is the biggest tribe in the area.

It was so sweet to come home at night to the resort where we stayed on the banks of the Kaptai Lake...and as the sun drifted lower, we ordered more ...7Up (no beer, we're in a Muslim country!)

Back to the city of Chittagong where I experienced the worse air pollution ever, anywhere!