Panorama of the Week: The Tea Gardens of Bangladesh
Have you ever wondered where your morning tea comes from? Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
10 Comments | 30 March 2012
Category Archive: Bangladesh
Bangladesh Travel: A Beginner’s Guide + Podcast
More than five weeks in Bangladesh? Is there really enough to do there?
– A typical response when we shared our Bangladesh travel plans.
Let’s face it. Reliable independent travel information about Bangladesh doesn’t flow quite as freely as it does for some other nearby countries in Asia.
Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, South Asia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
13 Comments | 10 January 2012
Bangladeshi Food: An Overview
Bangladeshi food in a home is the best – it’s cooked with the care and love of a woman’s hands. In restaurants, food is cooked by men for quantity.
– A Bangladeshi friend captures the crux of Bangladeshi food.
Sabzi. You know you want some!
Although you may not have realized it, it’s quite possible you’ve eaten Bangaldeshi food. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Food, South Asia by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
55 Comments | 15 September 2011
Bangladesh Village Homestay: Becoming One of the Family
This is the story of a homestay experience in rural Bangladesh — and a young woman who hopes to be Prime Minister one day.
There I was in a traditional courtyard kitchen in a village in Bangladesh. Dirt floor, earthen oven. Mrs. Ali, our host mother, stoked the fire and minded several hot pans. It was time to slice the onions and my turn was up. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, South Asia, Travel by: Audrey Scott
31 Comments | 2 September 2011
Travel Jeopardy: What Is Bangladesh?
What comes to mind when you hear the word “Bangladesh”?
Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, South Asia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
42 Comments | 19 August 2011
Panorama of the Week: Buddhism in Bangladesh?
Once upon a time, Buddhism was the prominent religion across the land that is now Bangladesh.
Although Buddhists only make up around 1% of the population today, you can find pockets of of Marma, Chakma and other ethnic communities practicing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh. There are even a few Bengali Buddhists about. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
3 Comments | 18 April 2011
Bangladesh Faces: Frequently Asked Questions and the People Who Ask Them
Oh, Bangladesh. To unpack this country is the stuff of lifetimes. But let’s begin with this: Bangladeshis are a curious lot. And there are a lot of them, as in 150 million or so, all living in a country the size of the state of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin!
Bangladesh doesn’t get many foreign visitors, either. So if you do drop in and take a walk just about anywhere, chances are that you’ll be swamped in humanity. (God forbid that you actually stop moving, for you might not be able to move again.)
Audrey in the role of the Pied Piper at a village school.
And people will ask many questions — that help them learn about us and that we believe say much about their culture. So we offer images of a few of the people we’ve met, the questions they’ve asked, and the way they’ve asked them. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Travel by: Daniel Noll
53 Comments | 17 April 2011
Panorama of the Week: Indigenous Market, Chittagong Hill Tracts
Open the panorama below and you might be wondering, “Is that really Bangladesh??”
In scenes like this one at the indigenous market in the town of Bandarban, it’s easy to forget which country we’re visiting. Bandarban is part of an area known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). CHT’s rolling hills in southeastern Bangladesh are home to over fifteen indigenous groups, many of which have their origins in far eastern India, Burma and Southeast Asia.
While the market had some unusual features for one in Bangladesh — a monitor lizard butchered to bits at the river’s edge, a huge pig sawed in half mid-market, massive sting rays hanging on hooks, and sacks jumping with plump frogs — something else stood out. Women. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
8 Comments | 11 April 2011
The Destination Is Everything, The Destination Is Nothing
Have you ever set off for a destination not really caring whether you actually arrive?
The other morning, we hopped on rented single speed bikes (they looked like racing bikes, but rode like penny farthings) and headed off into the tea plantation hills of eastern Bangladesh. Our destination: Madhabpur Lake, 25 kilometers outside of our base of Srimongal.
We thought the lake would be nice, but figured the bicycle journey there and back would offer some interesting experiences and a new perspective on the people who lived in the villages and amongst the tea plantations.
As often happens, getting to the lake was far more interesting than the lake itself. And this got me to thinking: What was the purpose of the lake – the destination — in the first place? Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Travel by: Audrey Scott
19 Comments | 8 April 2011
Dollywood Rickshaw Art in Bangladesh
It’s just about impossible to imagine Bangladesh without the bicycle rickshaw. With colorful artwork on the back, hard-working drivers in front, bicycle rickshaws are not relics of the past, but the dominant form of transport throughout the country. The atmosphere of riding in one alternates between the peace of a slow ride above it all and the mania of a bob-and-weave in the thick of it (of the sorts that can make India look positively tame).
Besides its driver, what makes a rickshaw really stand out are its colors and artwork. In one Bangladeshi town in particular, Rajshahi, we noticed a theme in its rickshaw art: Dollywood*-style scenes of buxom women and brawny men.
Here’s a sample of what we found. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Bangladesh, Travel by: Audrey Scott
14 Comments | 3 April 2011
