The first objective, albeit not stated previously, has been achieved. We have transferred from a miserably cold, freezing Netherlands to the pleasant evening temperatures of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
Not that we have seen much yet, we just drove from airport to hotel, and took a short walk in the neighbourhood, according to the guy who picked us up the richest area in Dhaka, no, in the whole of Bangladesh. And it shows, even in the dark – or perhaps because of the dark. It may not be Doha or Dubai, but even here we spot some fairly modern architecture, not wholly unattractive. Some flashy shops, and several of the world’s best-known fast-food outlets. Lots of pharmacies. All of this in between the broken pavement, the swaths of untidy electricity cables, the multiple rickshaws that all are dying to bring us anywhere. And the beggars, women and children mostly.
Tomorrow morning we are already heading out to some other place, we will only return to Dhaka at the end of these two weeks, but first impressions are always important. It turns out, the guy in the Bangladeshi embassy in The Hague was not an exception: everybody here is so friendly, so nice. From the policemen who check our passports, patiently waiting for some form we haven’t filled in yet, to the people outside the airport, who are curious about where we come from, whether we are Muslim, how long we are staying, what we come to do. And then they find out that my travel companion is Argentinian! It turns out that this entire country supports the Argentinian football team during the Worldcup. Wrong choice, as far as I am concerned, but it is an immediate icebreaker, if that would have been necessary at all. Says a 12-13 year old boy with a big smile: “Welcome to Bangladesh”.