Dear Elizabeth,
I’d been in Bangladesh for a year
and a half when my visa required another trip out of the country. April had returned to the States, and it
wasn’t safe or smart to travel alone.
What was I going to do?
Fortunately for me, there was a
group of fellow missionaries headed for Thailand for a few days. They invited me to come along with them.
We made an interesting collection of
people. The family, with 3 pre-teen
girls and one young son, was quiet and conservative. Teena, a middle-aged widow, was uninhibited,
full of and laughter and spunk. I guess
I was somewhere in the middle.
Our trip got off to an unusual
start. (You’d think I’d start expecting
that since the unusual happened much more often than the usual around there.)
First was the train ride from our
city to the capital city of Bangladesh.
We arrived at the station before 7, where an exuberant train worker
welcomed us by yelling, “Last call!
Run! Your train leaving!”
Thus, very quickly, we scurried in
and out amid all the people, trying to get on the train before it left. Coolies rushed behind us, carrying some of
our luggage. White people are a sight in
Bangladesh at any time, but a whole group of white people jumping onto a train
while coolies throw their luggage in through the windows must have been a
noteworthy scene indeed.
About this time, the train man actually
looked at our tickets. He started
yelling again, only this time it was, “Wrong train! Get off!”
Off the train we jumped. Out the windows came our luggage. For awhile we all just stood there, sweating,
catching our breath, rather amazed that all of us and all our luggage was still
together in one vicinity.
Not long after that, another man
came to show us the right train we were to board. Fortunately, this one was not in the process
of leaving right at that moment. We
boarded the train and found our places.
We had seats together (which was
good), 5 windows (also good), and ceiling fans (which would have been good had
they been working). We asked a train
worker to turn on the fans. He smiled
and said yes. We didn’t know whether
that meant the fans would get turned on, or that they didn’t work but he didn’t
want us to be unhappy so he said yes anyway.
We sat and waited, still
sweating. There were so many beggars at
the window, they blocked any breeze that might have been blowing. The 3 young girls were sitting with me, and
the male beggars who had crowded outside kept reaching in to touch their blond
hair or white skin. Finally, I closed
the window and we endured the heat until the train began to move.
Once it did, a refreshing breeze
flowed throughout the train. Our ride
would have been nice and relaxing, except for the extremely loud noise it made
rocking back and forth. Not to mention
the rocking back and forth. Teena said
it was like a 5 ½-hour long mild earthquake.
For awhile, I left our seats and
went to stand in the open doorway. That
was delightful. I reveled in the feel of
the wind swirling all around me, and felt part of the scenery as we sped past
deep green rice fields, clusters of trees, goats and cows wandering around,
children waving as we passed.
I remained there happily until the
train man very nicely but emphatically directed me back to my seat. By then the fans were working. Apparently they needed the train to be moving
for them to move as well.
After several stops and a snack of
bananas, we finally arrived in the capital city of Dhaka. As the driver who was supposed to meet us was
nowhere to be seen, we summoned three baby taxis to take our group to the guest
house together. They agreed, but we
found out quickly that they had no intentions of staying together. Each had his own way to get to our guest
house, regardless of whether he knew where the guest house was or not.
Of our little group, I was the one
who had been in Bangladesh the longest, and who knew the most Bengali. This was not fortunate for our group. I tried to tell the drivers where to go, but
there was only one of me and three taxis.
Taxi number three went the wrong way and we couldn’t get him to
stop. Finally we all regrouped, but were
still several blocks from the guest house.
The drivers didn’t want to go the way I told them. I’m not sure where they wanted to go.
 |
| Traffic can get...interesting! |
Eventually, we did end up at the
guest house, and then the drivers got upset about the amount of taka we paid
them. They were expecting to make extra
off the rich white people and were quite disappointed when we wanted to pay
them the normal rate.
We did end up paying some extra, but
not as much as they wanted, so we left them to argue with the gate keepers for
awhile while we went inside. Only
problem was, we realized we were locked out and had no key. So we sat on the steps and waited until the
gate guard went up to the roof where the cook lived and got us a key.
We were happy to get inside. It had been seven hours since any of us had
been able to visit a bathroom or wash our hands—this being in the days before
tiny tubes of hand-sanitizer.
About half an hour later, the driver
who should have picked us up at the train station appeared. He had only gotten to the station an hour
late.
Thus the trip began. The next day we got off to Thailand without a
hitch, oddly enough. Once there, we
couldn’t get enough of the American Fast Food places, or the restaurants with
real salad that hadn’t needing washing in bleach first. I ate a ridiculous amount of french fries,
and would have eaten more had I had the chance.
French fries taste incredibly good when you haven’t had them for almost
two years.
Thailand to be continued . . .
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