November 1, 2010 to November 3, 2010
Dhaka
getting sorted
The hotel has a pool on the roof, there are fluffy white towels in my bathroom and the bed is king-size. And it hasn't cost me a cent.
I had some airmiles that were about to expire so it seemed like a good idea to cash 'em in on a night in the Regency Dhaka.
This place is just a ten-minutes cycle ride from the airport, but they are long minutes. The road is like a highway, but with no lights and cars and buses zoom along. Rickshaws appear out of the glare and the darkness, heading against the flow. What can I say? I survive.
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The cash saved on the room will help offset what Cathy Pacific ripped me off for. My baggage was overweight by 10 kilos. Surprise surprise. The airline charged me for about US$120 extra and a box for my bike cost another US$30. What a pain. At least I know what I'm lugging around now = around 25 kilos.
I'll venture into the center in the morning - just a few more kilometers to go, but hopefully I'll find a side road that quiet and safer.
Tuesday
The view from the Regency's 14th floor rooftop looks roughly the same in daylight - a long jam of traffic snarled up and nudging ever so slowly into the capital. They say New York never sleeps, but it seems comatose compared to Dhaka.
I check out of the bubble of luxury at the Regent and find my front tire flat. My guess is the tube got pinched against the rim on the flight and as it's a super-slow puncture I just pump it up at a nearby gas station air hose and go with the flow.
Or the lack of thereof.
At first it seemed best to trace side roads running beside the main artery, but it soon becomes frustrating trying to find my way and I bit the bullet and ride on the main road, which isn't so bad. With the sheer volume of vehicles, the speed is pedestrian and the handful of kilometers to the centre takes me two hours.
The second half of my day quickly goes, as I have a meeting lined up (connected to a magazine idea) which turns out to be way back out where I've cycled from. I take a CNG - these are similar to tuk-tuks in Thailand; three-wheeled taxis of which there are thousands of zipping around the city.
It's a nice, cheap experience, but colorful rickshaws really dominate the downtown area and not for nothing is the city is called the capital of rickshaws, with an estimated half million of them trundling around.
Wednesday - The Old Town
You could say Dhaka isn't love at first sight, but it does have a way of seducing you once you look past its faults of manic traffic jams and choking diesel fumes.
It is easy to find a another place to stay and the room is OK.
A guy named Taimur is a guy I made online contact with. He works with Dhaka's Urban Study Group, a conservation organisation that's trying to preserve what's left of the capital's dwindling architectural heritage and has agreed to be my guide.
Taimur meets me early - 8:00 - near my downtown hotel, close by to Dhaka's Old Town - an area with nitty gritty character, one huge photo opportunity, and a place filled with narrow alleys and lanes that guarantee getting lost.
Taimur was brought up in one of the neighborhoods and we get a CNG to a hundred-year-old mansion that has clearly seen better days.
The Rose Garden's palatial front façade is painted white and looks like something from a grand English estate, but it really is just that - a façade. We walk around some of the ground floor rooms that have had all the glamour removed - spaces stripped down to the basics and ones which remind me of a cheap students' accommodation. There are goats and a cow in the garden.
But at least it's still standing and Taimur laments that many others have disappeared under a wrecking ball to make room for tacky apartment blocks.
During the tour we take a few rickshaws and have a traditional breakfast which is wide range of splendid dishes, including a sweet. Fantastic.
Without his expertise and in-depth knowledge, there's absolutely no way I'd have found the sites we visit and he leads me around back streets and into people's property - always welcomed with smiles and me getting the usual inquisitive questions about nationality, age, occupation and marital status.
Once back at the hotel, a friend of a Bangladeshi cyclist I'd emailed calls to the hotel and picks up an old Cannondale bar-bag I've brought over.
It's a fortuitous meeting as he's able to get me hooked up with the local telephone company and after paying about US$50 for a dongle and a SIM with one-month's 1GB usage, I'm all set.
I've already fixed the puncture - the minutest of pinholes that was hard to locate, even submersed in a pail of water - and am ready for an early departure. Tomorrow is time to hit the road.
Today's ride: 13 km (8 miles)
Total: 13 km (8 miles)
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