New Market

Yesterday we went to New Market. We got there at 10 am, too early and most of the shops were shut. It gave us a chance to check out the lay of the land before it became crowded. Here is Marc in an uncharacteristically empty Dhaka:

We went into the food section of the market, not a place for vegetarians. There was the goat production line with the live goats tied up next to their friend's carcasses and the severed heads close by! There were big fish, small fish, dead fish, live fish and dried fish. This man saw us and wanted his photo taken. He is sitting on the back of his stall.

After the market we decided to walk home as it's hard to tell where everything is and how far away when being driven in all the traffic. Not walking is a status symbol here. Being driven is best, followed by taking a rickshaw or auto-rickshaw (CNG), followed by walking. Why would you walk if you don't have too? Actually walking is always a bit of an adventure and sensory overload. There's not always a pavement and sometimes there are holes down into the sewers. There's usually tonnes of traffic, it's hot and the smells are interesting and strong!

So we walked and saw interesting things. Here are men praying in the streets, not in the mosque:

We went down a small street and got to the train track where the barriers were down and there were lots of rickshaws waiting, lots of the people didn't bother to wait, here is the scene just before the train arrived:

While we were waiting, there were a lot of people staring at us so I decided to try out my Bangla and asked one of them how he was. I heard him telling his friend that I could speak Bangla! His friend came over and we had a chat. He was really pleased that I was learning Bangla and I was happy to discover that it's true that people will ask us where we are from, what job we do, where we live and whether we like Bangladesh so I could answer his questions (a bit slowly but ok). It was great, and I think we made a friend.