EPTNOTE: $1AUD = ~50-54Rs. (rupees, India) $1AUD = ~75-80Tk. (taka, Bangladesh)
So. I’ve been out of the scene for the last two months, due to an exquisite touring of the Wild East, also known as Bangladesh and India. Fun was had, now it will be shared!
This blog will be divided into some sub-sections
- Country & Nature
- Driving & Vehicles (yea!)
- People & Shopping
- Anecdotes, Rants & Random
- Other Photos & Videos
Country
India is very, very, very dusty. If you happen to shine a torch light at night, you will always see the beam, unlike in Australia (in Bangladesh, every night was foggy, but it is not dusty there) The dust is a killer, I was rendered ill for the whole first week. My father lost his voice as we waited at a bus stand.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/38ebc.jpg)
“The whole country is your waste-basket”
If you need to dispose of something, and the item is in your hands, just open your hands, let it go! I tried hard not to litter, but that is quite a feat. Rubbish is everywhere. Not saying it in a bad way, that the countries are yucky, but you will find rubbish everywhere (makes me want to see Singapore). Most of the places have open drains along the side of the roads (black water, occasionally eels) which most houses are connected to. These are very agreeable conditions for mosquitoes to breed in, oh yes. You wouldn’t dare sleep without a mosquito net. The little suckers aren’t little, like they are in Australia, if you swipe at them, you can feel them in your hand. And there are so many of them! Australia, you’ll get maybe 2 or 3 in your house during summer. In India, once I opened the door to a toilet and behold, there were 10-15 mosquitoes diligently waiting for their next customer (Had to shoo them out, took a while). India seemed to have more mosquitoes than Bangladesh. I was lucky to survive my first week without a single bite; my brother got ~3-4 on the first day. When I finally did succumb to the bites, I had ~7 per arm, 3 per leg and 2-3 elsewhere on the face/body. There was a fun mosquito killer at my uncles house, picture below
![[image loading]](http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg17/xPloSiV01/DSC00101.jpg)
“Badminton is now an extreme sport”
The toilets weren’t as bad as I had expected; however, the environment surrounding many of them was atrocious (due to open drain system?). Though, some of the toilets I saw were so stained, you’d think some guy had dropped a bucket of paint and left. I saw some cracked toilets too, leaving me wondering about the relieving force...
Oh yea...on the last day of the India leg of the trip, there was a bloody cockroach climbing up the toilet. Yes, I admit it, I ran!
You can (usually) always access the roof of a solid building, and it always reminds me of the favelas in CoD. My friend did leap across a few rooftops, but the gaps were small, nothing major. Wonderful view from up there, day or night. If you want to become a pro-tier ninja, go practice there – one thing I learned in India, people rarely look up!! (Except me, I’m paranoid
)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Jooq1.jpg)
"Rooftop relays at the Ninja Olympics?"
Nature
Nature is beautiful. There are trees everywhere, and they are so pretty and of such variety. (pictures in the picture section) Many a times, when travelling from place to place, you will see vast expanses of trees, wonderful. I’ve been through a few small tree tunnels, that is, trees on both sides of the road bending to make a tunnel-like shape.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9J818.jpg)
"Trees!"
The night sky is wonderful and full of stars; it is even better when the current goes out. Only then can you appreciate the beauty of the moon
My friend taught me some star navigation techniques that he learned from a ship captain, was interesting seeing the patterns every night.Animals are plentiful and everywhere. Dogs are all over the roads, occasionally, you’ll see a cat or two. Cows and buffalos are common, you’ll see them on roads too. I’ve seen so many cute little goats that I want one now <3 <3 I saw many of them wearing old t-shirts (one was wearing a leather jacket!) and they look so adorable! They have cute bleats, especially the young ones. <3 (Sorry for no goat pictures, they run away
) Once, there was an army of monkeys at a railway station we were passing, being fed by our passing train. Sea snakes were spotted, spiders as well. Speaking of spiders, I’ve never seen a perfect spider-web in Australia. However, over there, the webs are so perfect and beautiful. It’s almost as if the spiders here have forgotten how to weave...almost as if they’ve been Westernised! 
I saw a ~1.5-2cm ant as well, was...unsettling :O Also saw frogs, funny insects and...other stuff :ODriving
Dat driving. Oh man, dat driving. It’s exhilarating, yet scary at the same time, just like a game of Starcraft! We could talk all day about the ‘micro’ involved
Zoom! Brake within 40cm of hitting a person. Zoom! Skid to a stop, 20cm from a vehicle coming out of a blind corner. Zoom! Watch the driver micro his seatbelt, the horn and yell out the window. Traffic lights have no reign over traffic, except in some parts of the city (and only during the day). The thing that does control everything and anything is the horn.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fI1Wc.jpg)
“Australia: Y u so Bronze league driver?”
There: Make way, coming through!”
The horn is an essential driving tool. If you do not possess one, you will arrive a day late.
One car I had travelled in, the leather cover on the steering wheel had holes in the place where your fingers bash the horn The horn is the thing that lets others know you will get past them at any cost (at night, beam light flashes help)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GNywO.jpg)
"All you need to know, Starcraft players"
If you are stuck in traffic, your only way out is the horn. Naturally, bigger vehicles, such as buses and trucks, take preference on the road, and when your driver sees them approaching, he will manoeuvre to one side.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4Yyf6.jpg)
“Roundabout? More like WTFabout”
At times, if you pay enough attention, you will notice horn melodies in busy places, such melodies they are! (Time for a conductor to set up a car horn orchestra!) And the horns aren’t all of one sound, like they are here; many have tunes, like (what I call them) square sine waves, normal sine waves, fading horns, etc.
Many (or most) of the roads are in terrible condition, full of holes and uneven, and really narrow.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UPzJz.jpg)
"Are you roadworthy?" (these are highways that connect cities)
You'll never get a smooth ride, even in the city, the roads go up and down (No sleep for you!
) I’ve seen a rusted bus-wreck, dead by the side of a road, meaning, ~60cm below the road in a field. Overtaking on those narrow roads is rather...risky? But I guess it is normal to them. I get scared when there's a lake or pond on either side, don't want to drown in a car!![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/b3wO5.jpg)
"Dodgem Cars: Death Edition"
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TuPw8.jpg)
I bet the drivers do these to scare me >_> It is even scarier at night. Then, if you add fog, accidents are just waiting to happen. But even though I’ve travelled by dawn in fog, travelled at night, I haven’t been in an accident yet (except one, we’ll come to that) so I guess these drivers know their business well, yes? It is scary when the buses tilt at obscene angles, though, during high speed overtakes :O
Vehicles
I suspect that if there were roadworthy tests for automobiles, 50% of vehicles would disappear
Nonetheless, the vehicles are there, and therefore must be discussed. Bus: The lifeblood of the roads. I haven’t seen an unscathed bus in Bangladesh yet, and only a handful of them in Delhi. These hunks of metal (some literally are) are the people-movers; people on the roof, people hanging out the doors, people hanging off the back, people everywhere! They charge through traffic, day and night
Without buses (and trucks), the country would stop. There's always the risk of late-night robberies, when the tyres and gunned down and the bus looted. Train: While the waiting time for trains is absurd (to be discussed later), the trains themselves are decent enough. The local trains were packed to the brim, but the long-distance train I took from Delhi to Kharagpur (30 hour trip), it takes exactly the amount of people it is meant to seat. I’ve never been on a long-distance train in Australia, but the trains over there were decent. Below are a few diagrams of the Sleeper Class.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0x7Hx.jpg)
The toilets were decent enough; I was expecting them to be bad. However, keep in mind, if the train is going at max speed, going to the toilet becomes an extreme sport
The food was decent, you have to buy everything (some trains include all costs in ticket, some don't). People regularly walk down the aisles, selling water bottles, snacks and other goodies. 
My my, the trains are long! If anyone reading this is from Melbourne, Australia, know that the platforms over there are somewhere between 4 to 8 times as long as our platforms. Crazy big! Walking from one end to the other is enough exercise for a day
The views were very nice, saw all sorts of things, like a train carrying lots of tractors, a pyre, mountains, vast plains, massive rivers, etc
Trains are sometimes derailed in Indua (I hear by the Communist part in India). I heard a gruesome story of a passenger train being derailed (usually by explosives on the tracks) and then being RUN OVER by a freight train. The way the people described the scenes of carnage was horrrribbble, gruesome, I'd never sleep if I saw the aftermath. Eeek
Oh yea, seeing kids running across the roofs of trains is...thrilling?
CNG/Scooter/Tempu/Autorickshaw/Baby Taxi: Easily my favourite form of paid transport. These little babes have wonderful engine noises, hearing 10-15 of them take off at the railway boom games, you feel like a boss :D. With max speeds of 80km/h and average speeds of 20-40km/h, they go everywhere and anywhere, road or dirt.
![[image loading]](http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg17/xPloSiV01/DSC00014.jpg)
“My name is V. V for versatile”
The tempu is a bit different from the standard CNGs; it fits more people and, in my opinion, looks way cooler. You can reserve CNGs/Tempus if you and your friends/family wish to travel from A to B; however, this costs a bit. If you are going to use these daily to get to work, you’ll have to hop on them with other people (just like a small bus). I had a small crash in one of these one day. One CNG was switching lanes, it did not see us and rammed us in the side, violent force. No lasting damage caused, but the drivers had a fun heated argument afterwards
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QyOb1.jpg)
Rickshaw: These are more common in Bangladesh than India (by more common, I mean they are everywhere). And indeed, they are everywhere! A gentle, peaceful method of transport, from one place to a nearby place. The riders are tank as, as anyone would be, if they lugged along 1 or 2 passengers for a living on a bike. They do clog up the roads a lot, though.
Jeep: Not any jeep, no, no. My uncle is a rather high ranking officer in the army, and so, I had a few trips in his personal Army jeep
Instant preference on the road, and the ride was so smooth! (As far as I remember, the jeeps had max speeds of 140 km/h, didn’t go above 80 km/h on the ‘highways’) On top of that, salutes left and right, whenever we were in the cantonment While talking about the military, I saw a few tanks on trucks being transported . I also saw the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Bengali 'special forces', drive by in their own awesome vehicle. They were all dressed in black, with black bandanas, black glasses, wicked sick ninjas Motorcycle: The most beautiful vehicle. Ever. I fell in love with them the first time I hopped on one, in India. While they aren’t really powerful bikes (max speeds of 120-140km/h), their manoeuvrability and versatility on the road is epic. Watching and hearing an armada of 10-15 bikes rev up at the traffic lights in Delhi is adorable, a sight (and sound) to behold (then watch then all try and overtake each other is funny
) Motorbikes are very common in India, and cheap too, since India manufactures motorbikes (Indian brands include Bajjaj, TVS, Hero Honda). Motorbikes look and sound so wickedly awesome, I’m going to try and get one over here in Australia Truck: Yes, I had a brief trip in the back of a truck. Decent ride, just need to watch your head if you are standing up...nearly got caught up in some wires >_> (good reflex training!)
People
People will always be people. Most of the people I met, they were good, soft people, mannered, wonderful people. Everyone is interested in money, more so over there than over here. Sometimes, at first glance, you'd think a person is poor just from his clothes, but in fact, he is not! Sometimes, I feel shame in my people; people want money at any cost. Bribery is so common, robberies as well, corruption is everywhere. There's always tales in the newspaper of events such as these. Most people over there are lean and tank, unlike over here; you rarely see fat people, maybe a few fat old men in the cities (rich
). Also, the women there dress nicely, wonderful dresses, and so colourful! . There are beggars everywhere, of course – you can’t let them surround you! Where you get lots of people, you also get lots of problems. I’ve seen so many deformities, of so many kinds! I was going to photoshop pictures of them, but since I've run out of time, I'll just describe them. I saw a foot; the heel was normal, but the front half of the foot was upside down, the toes were facing up! I've seen people with 6 toes, people with fingers bent at unnatural angles, calfs with gaping holes, feet bent at 90 degrees, skinny calfs, hunchbacks, many more! It takes serious willpower to get around with those disabilities in countries less fortunate (without wheelchairs, etc), and for that, I salute them.I must mention my grandfather here, while talking about people. He is close to 99 years of age, but is not bedridden. You can still see him wandering around the village, doing work. And he doesn’t need glasses to read! Guy is overpowered!
(Like a Terran Marine )Shopping
Both a blessing and a curse, shopping is. You can find all sorts of items, all sorts of trinkets, all of them at adorable prices (for us foreigners) but then you have to deal with the salesman. And if they catch wind that you are a foreigner (which they always do) you are dead (or your wallet is), so it is compulsory that you bring along a local to help you sniff and barter. The salesmen never lets go! They’ll put any actor to shame, “Oh please...I have a family to feed...that price will not suffice!” <Insert sad face>. We went into a shop to buy one item of clothing, came out with three (at ‘severely reduced prices’). The salesman was such a big mouth, I wanted to give him a good hiding.
Quite dangerous at times, shopping can be; he certainly had some quantity of charm that my (foreign) friend fell for. Without the help of a local, I managed to reduce the price of a waterproof rug from 300Rs to 280Rs to 250Rs. It would go way lower at the hands of a local, the guy gave in so easily that I suspect he still made tons of profit :O My cousin managed to barter a pair of sneakers from 2400Tk to 2000Tk to 1700Tk. Even then, it would have gone a bit lower. A person (uncle’s friend) selling watches told my father “Prices are tailored to the interest of a person. A 500Tk watch can be sold at 3000Tk if the person is interested enough”. Nonetheless, things are cheap. Coke cans (genuine) cost around 60 cents, bars of soap are around 10 cents, packets of Lays chips are around 70 cents, I think. And such corny English slogans there are! (With spelling mistakes everywhere) These are the ones I wrote down: Quantum Core (bicycle), Sport Equipe, Rhythem, Good knight!, Punk Rock All Star, Jents (gents), Enterprice (Enterprise), Biget (biggest), Kinetic Nova (Bike), Ballon (balloon), resourt (resort), Well come (...), radymade (readymade, tailors), coat paint (coat pant, tailors), vascoat (waistcoat, tailors). You’ll see many product labels having ‘X amount free!’ or ‘XX% free!’, advertising at its finest
Scan of a few labels
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/O2EVW.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BSEro.jpg)
List of some stuff I bought
Multitool (120Rs, ~$2), Watch (850Tk, ~$10), Utility Vest (350Tk, ~$7), Sneakers (1700Tk, ~$22), Epic Comb (5Rs, ~10cents), Perfumes (shrug, ~$._.), Notepad (10Rs, ~20cents)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aVQjB.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nvEOj.jpg)
Really fond of the watch
Anecdotes, Rants & Random
Anecdote #1
A normal day of travelling
- Wake up at 3:00am, that is, 2.5 hours of sleep.
- Wait for transport that is 30 minutes late
- Get on vehicle, bound for Delhi airport. Visibility is terrible due to fog
- Vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road due to gearbox problems. Time till boarding of plane: ~20 minutes
- Somehow manage to get enough taxis/vans to take us to the airport (Much more to it than this, not to be discussed)
- Barely make it onto the plane
- Transit time at Kolkata airport: 6 hours
- Plane delayed 45 minutes
- Arrive at Dhaka airport, half-dead
- Wait at a bus-stand for 3 hours, and then spend ~4 hours on bus (with the fear of getting gunned down)
- Home
Random #1
Assume all people are slow.
(shrug)Anecdote #2
I had the scariest dream (of my life) on my first night in Bangladesh. While it may not seem scary anymore, it was horrendous back then. It was night. We were in a jungle. And there was a killer on the loose. A serial killer. He did not kill just anyone. He ate children. He had a large rubbish-collection truck, with which he collected children. The screams were the worst part of the dream. Adult-like screams, bloodcurdling, pleas for help, hopeless, gurgling, gruesome. He was on the prowl, and we were on the run. At the end of the dream, it was revealed that the killer’s kill count was 7000+. Never had a dream like this, hope it never happens again.
Random #2
This and this bounced in my head for the duration of the trip
Rant #1
Want to test a person’s character, test his patience. How do you test one's patience? Make him wait 10 hours at a crowded train station during the night while sick for a train. And it’s not like it said on the timetable screen that the train was 10 hours late, so that we could prepare. It kept updating every 2 hours, adding another 2 hours. How in the bloody world is a train 10 hours late? And it didn’t happen to us once, it happened twice (luckily, second time, we were better informed, and stayed at a house). 10 hours?? We get mad in Australia about trains delayed 10 minutes. Yes, they are long distance trains, but 10 hours?? All the Indians knew what was happening, and hence, the station was full of sleeping people, blankets and bags used as pillows. I guess it is normal over there. Well, it shouldn’t be! How can you plan anything, like an international plane trip or a marriage or a connecting service? Ridiculous.
Random #3
Yes, TL...I have finally succumbed to the horrible thing known as...yellow fever.
Flight attendants are damn contagious! Then, transit in Bangkok further aggravated the condition. And there were plenty of them in India, especially at the airports and railway stations! (Even the flight attendants!) Then transit in Malaysia sealed the deal. It's not a temporary condition...it's permanent! 
Rant #2
Alright...I have to spend 4 hours on a bus, fine. At night even (10pm+). Why in the world do they have to turn on a bloody Bangla film? And on max volume (with the speakers right next to us)? And the film! ATROCIOUS! Hey look, I’m James Bond’s little brother, I can leap through windows unscathed and accurately hit anything at 1000m away with a pistol! After the intro of guns and choppers, the unstoppable main character will probably see a woman for the first time in his life.
Then they’ll stare at each other for 10-20 minutes (naturally). Then, forget the bloody war, it’s time to get married! 
Then they’ll dance forever (holy crap, absurd ‘mating dances’!) and yea...avoid at all costs if you want to maintain sanity. I don't even get how people enjoy watching them, they must be really depressed. I was trying to sleep, as were a few others, didn't happen.Random #3
I can now do 3x as many situps as I could before
(wasn't a large number to start off with )Anecdote #3
Customs at Bangkok include taking off your shoes, belts and hats! Then, you need to raise your hands like a prisoner and stand in a scanning machine for a while. There are customs (at least, bag scanners) at New Delhi Railway Station, funny how people avoid it. (Saw an officer at the station beat up a person) Bengali custom/immigration was horribly slow
Other Photos & Videos
Lots (~27) of large images, click at your own risk!
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5sBfl.jpg)
Physics Book! (Year 12)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1t0TH.jpg)
Chem Book! (Year 12)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vOPSN.jpg)
Cantoment!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/M3yOU.jpg)
More Cantoment!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fxz83.jpg)
Buildings
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RuMue.jpg)
Chicken House
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GReAf.jpg)
Mymensingh city
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zhaPi.jpg)
An outdoor kitchen
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HZVVt.jpg)
Coconut trees
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NQZ12.jpg)
Outdoor mosquito net (not the bed ones)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pu64B.jpg)
An indoor kitchen!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XO3xr.jpg)
Lizard!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u2kIl.jpg)
The plains
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZBMvl.jpg)
Clothes!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0ghgb.jpg)
House!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lGwZw.jpg)
Tubewell!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OUwOD.jpg)
A sick chick that cannot keep up with the pack
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/joAgB.jpg)
Guess how many chicks are under her feathers!?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0e45q.jpg)
Switches!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/n1cwV.jpg)
From the roof
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qBlFq.jpg)
Somewhere
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aycGQ.jpg)
Somewhere, also
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fXFeY.jpg)
Love these chairs
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/binbn.jpg)
Tree!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Wj9ws.jpg)
Pond!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5Dhj8.jpg)
Parkour!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WYsW7.jpg)
View
Some videos I took of some
Well, that is that. I could have written some more, but I think it is long enough
Be grateful, people, that you live in such wonderful countries while other people struggle on a daily basis for survival. As you may know, people do live off $2 daily (it is possible, I did calculations) and it is a harsh life. Even the poorest people here probably get lots of support from the government. We can continue to desire more and more, but man's stomach for desires will only be filled with the earth of the grave. Money comes and goes, family and friendship...
May get back into sc or not, busy nowadays with uni, may just play once or twice a week.
Thank you all for reading! Thank you
There's no place like home!!!
DisaFear
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GxIOh.jpg)
