19. a bit about the roads

by
one of the traffic participants in Bangladesh: a flat fright tuktuk, now parked

in Bangladesh (and their users)

I already described some of the driving experience in Dhaka, or rather, the non-driving, mostly creeping forward experience. Much of the congestion, I have decided after observing, comes from the range of vehicles being used. If you allow hand-drawn carts on the road, at least part of the traffic, trapped behind the cart, will be going at walking speed. Or they try to overtake, on the left or the right, and thus infringe on the progress in the neighbouring lane.

even just tuktuks can cause a major traffic jam on a bridge – imagien a car passing
in a flat country like Banglasdesh, bicycles are popular; for all type of transport
and so are the rickshaws, although progress means that most of these are now electrically powered

On rural roads this is not different, except that there is usually less space; there is only so much room for vehicles next to each other on a two-lane road. The hierarchy in rural traffic is crystal clear: busses go first, in fact they just go, with little regard for other road users. Trucks follow closely, but most are just a little smaller than the busses, mostly two-axle trucks only, and no trailers, that would be impossible to manage. And then come the saloon cars, the SUVs and the minivans of which there are actually not that many. But as soon as the traffic slows, it is the tuk-tuks and rickshaws and motorbikes that squeeze themselves in between everything else, and each other – as the traffic slows, they are invariably with more, many more, than the cars. That this process occasionally involves a minor collision, the sacrifice of a mirror, or a scrape by, is something everybody seems to accept. And is evident from every car you see, invariably dented and scratched.

Most of the time it is entertaining to watch the traffic unfold. Occasionally, and especially at night, and in the passenger seat in the front, is it terrifying. But my occasionally securing the front seat does give me the opportunity to picture some of those road users, of which I have made a small (sic) selection.

next: the road to the border

you find all sorts of moving contraptions on the road
rickshaw transporting pots on a country road
or taking grass and weeds home for the cattle
motorised water bottle transport
and more pots and buckets, on a rickshaw – note the bells underneath
the most irritating are the motorbikes, who swerve with too high a speed in between every vehicle they doom to slow
trucks dominate the roads, in the absence of buses
many have a little plateau on top, like this sunshine, often loaded
and some have, like the earlier rickshaw, bells hanging underneath
and everything fits in a truck, of course
motorbike with plastic balls – no idea!
flat freight rickshaw with plastic pots, and not a few
and these, I don’t know, blankets perhaps? quite a pile, though!
basket trasport is always a thankful subject matter
the tuktuks in Cox’s Bazar are decorated with metalworks
and the back is also decorated
and one guy had actually installed a real steering wheel!
two types of transport in one, literally
and look how full one can pack a tuktuk if there is no motorbike inside
for the more serious transport, a rickshaw combination will do
but mostly, transport serves the people

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