The Peace Correspondent (33 page)

The Rajputs have a great sense of showmanship and pageantry. Caparisoned camels and horses carry tour groups into the main courtyard as the musicians blow horns and drums roll the “Royal Welcome.” In season, traditional Rajasthani artists give lively song and dance performances by candlelight, dazzling displays harking back to ancient days.

Another Roadside Detraction

Peacock cries are the wake-up call at Mandawa, summoning me to a fried eggs-toast-and-coffee breakfast. Heading back to Delhi, Suress takes a shortcut down side roads. These quickly degenerate
to mere sand trails through the scrub and desert, where the only other traffic consists of camels pulling two-wheeled carts with huge rubber tires, piled high with firewood.

In this heat, Suress stops frequently at mud huts with wells outside to top up the hissing radiator. Finally, the diesel engine overheats and stops. I sit on a kilometer stone by the side of the road reading The Times of India while the driver walks back a village for a bucket of water. It is just another roadside detraction.

Driving through rural Rajasthan is like being thrust into Satyajit Ray's classic Pather Panchali movie of village India. Then, suddenly, we are back on the main highway to Delhi, and 20th-century traffic. Back at my hotel, as I arrive hot and dusty, the towering doorman snaps to attention and salutes.

“I trust you have had a commendable journey, sir.”

THE sign “Flesh Pots” outside downtown Dhaka's Metropolitan Hotel was intriguing, especially in conservative Bangladesh. Curious, I walked up the dingy stairs to the second floor. Inside the door, the receptionist at the cash register whispered “Vegetable soup?” Despite the suggestive name, Flesh Pots is merely a restaurant serving such fare as “Chinese and American chop suey.” The vegetable soup was on special.

Like the restaurant, the Bangladesh capital is an anomaly, an ancient city where some 200,000 bicycle rickshaws still ply the streets, but hotels have satellite communications and broadcast international TV news. Bangladesh evokes images of a hapless land of overwhelming masses, typhoon ravaged coasts, endless expanses of flooded fields and inundated villages, droughts and disasters.

The capital, set on the flat, fertile delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, is not the most beloved of Asian capitals, for tourists, business travelers or, apparently, flight crews.

The crew on my flight from Hong Kong was gathered in the
galley at the back of the darkened Airbus when I went back to recharge my Champagne flute. Did they have to stay on and work the return flight to Hong Kong? I asked.

Yes, they did.

“That must be tough?” I sympathized.

“Well, its better than staying in Dhaka,” replied a stylish miss applying crimson polish to delicate fingernails. Her companions nodded earnest assent.

My first impression is hardly favorable. The sly usurers at the airport banks are widely known to cheat unwary visitors, giving as much as 25 percent less than the official exchange rate. Stung visitors question whether it is the official bank policy, or if the employees simply pocket the difference.

The hustling extends to Dhaka taxis, which have no meters, so bargaining is essential. Drivers ask up to five times the price from foreigners for the ride from the airport to the city, but will usually settle for much less. Three-wheel motorcycle-rickshaws, like Thai tuk-tuks, here called scooters or baby taxis, are more commonplace. With these, too, visitors pay up to 50 percent more than locals. Bicycle rickshaws are practical only for short distances, or a nostalgic ride, evoking an experience of old Asia, not so long ago.

The country, and its capital, has definite, although sometimes elusive, attractions. Founded in the 10th century, this was the Mogul capital of Bengal (1608-1704) and a trading center for the British, French and Dutch before coming under British rule in 1765. Even the name is not what it was. Dacca, the Romanized spelling of the Bengali name, became Dhaka in 1982.

In its dated urban appearance, and its preponderance of non-motorized traffic, Dhaka is reminiscent of a more leisurely era, like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur of a few decades ago. Two-, three- and four-wheel traffic -- bicycles, pedicabs and motor rickshaws, farm trucks and battered taxis -- clog the main streets such as North-South Road (formerly a canal). Even in the city center, crude, hand-drawn carts piled high with coconuts and
produce, as well as rustics returning to the farm carrying huge woven vegetable baskets, slow the traffic flow.

Bangladesh's colonial past prevails in the sing-song English, and a few architectural remnants such as the High Court and Curzon Hall, a rose-hued Victorian-Mogul building that now houses the Dhaka University science faculty. Six local English-language newspapers (Observer, Times, Morning News, Daily Star, Telegraph, New Nation) as well as international publications bring the news to this poor country.

The capital of the world's most crowded nation does have peaceful, attractive areas, such as broad Crescent Boulevard lined with brilliant flame trees. A symbol of modern Bangladesh, the modernistic, angular concrete Jatiya Sangsas Bhaban (parliament building) looks as though it is floating on a lake. Its American architect, Louis I. Kahn, who thought it a modern version of the Taj Mahal, designed it so that every room is exposed to light and cool breezes. When the electricity goes (as it does here), the building functions without lights or air-conditioning.

This low-rise city's soft, muddy base, and a lack of investment funds have restricted the construction of skyscrapers. Most banks, airlines and commercial offices are in Motijheel (both the street and the district), the heart of Dhaka's business life. But this is no Manhattan of Bengal; the 34-story State Bank Building is the country's tallest.

Numerous mosques and historic buildings set against the city's more contemporary structures reflect the country's ancient Muslim heritage. But the Bangladeshis fuse faith and commerce in their own, distinct way. Yet another symbol of modern Dhaka -- and another paradox -- is the giant Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, resembling a mammoth sugar cube just like the Kaaba in Mecca. While the faithful pray in the main hall, shopkeepers in the thriving basement electronic bazaar hawk TVs, VCRS, satellite dishes, batteries and coaxial cables.

East meets West most curiously in the 18th-century Ahsan Manzil, formerly home of the nawabs (rulers) of Dhaka. The imposing
pink riverside palace is now a museum. Inside, a row of portraits of ancient patriarchs in various configurations of beard gaze sternly down from the walls. Despite their archaic appearance, these men embraced modernism and endeavored to live like Victorian gentlemen.

Twenty-three galleries in 31 rooms display their life in the British colony, where they introduced such foreign innovations as plumbing and electricity to Bangladesh. In one room, a long dining table is set with crystal glasses and silverware. Other displays include a billiard room, the nawab's library, a bedroom with a four-poster bed and a drawing room with brothel-red velveteen walls.

When the national tourist organization, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, refers to this as “A land of hidden charm,” it is being modest. There is more to East Bengal than the Lancers and tigers, although the big striped cats still prowl the vast Sundarbans (beautiful forest) west of Dhaka. Deer, monkey, wild bear and hyena are more common, however. Terraced tea plantations spread over the scenic hills at Sylhet north of Dhaka, while to the south at Cox's Bazar the world's longest beach stretches for 120 kilometers along the Bay of Bengal.

Social customs are similar to those throughout Asia. Businessmen may bring their wives for dinner “If they think they are presentable enough, in looks and education,” explains one sari-clad executive. “Otherwise they might bring a secretary. People do want to be seen with a pretty girl,” she adds.

In this predominantly Muslim country, alcohol is legal, and readily available to visitors, although some conservative (orthodox) locals may object to it. Pork is also proscribed, and although the ubiquitous Chinese restaurants serve it, getting a standard bacon-and-eggs breakfast is a problem.

“Bangladesh is Muslim, but not fundamentalist,” a local businessman explains over morning tea. “You see Europeans in miniskirts, and local women do not wear veils. At least, very few of them.”

As a Muslim country, Bangladesh has different days off. “On Thursday, we get Saturday Night Fever,” the lady explains as she prepares to leave the office early. Many companies have a half day off Thursday, while banks, offices and government departments are closed Friday, the Muslim day of rest, when no alcoholic drinks are served. Multinationals and embassies are closed Saturdays as well, and everything is open on Sunday.

Thursday Night Fever is tamer than its Western counterpart. It is hard to boogie in Dhaka, a city of 1,000 mosques and about 20 bars, but no nightclubs. Locals socialize at private clubs, a legacy of the Raj, expatriates at diplomatic clubs. Entertaining is usually done in restaurants or in private homes, with cocktail parties and dinners.

Postprandial prancing and dancing is restricted in this conservative country. At the large, dark Sonargaon Hotel Khayyam Club, the city's only disco, a DJ plays neo-reggae while a few customers sit at the tables, eyeing the empty little dance floor.

The Bar off the Sheraton Hotel's lobby is pleasant, subdued, like a dimly lit private club, with high teak ceilings, large mirrors behind the bar and potted ferns. An innocuous house drink, the Dhaka Duck (orange, pineapple and lemon juice, Grenadine syrup and angostura bitters mixed with fresh cream), exemplifies Bengali nightlife.

But the bartender tells me Dhaka has more than 20 bars. Of all his suggestions, the Red Bottom Bar sounds most promising. Address in hand, I hail a “baby taxi” in pursuit of nocturnal adventures. But 10 minutes later, buzzing down a busy main street, I spot it: The Red Button Restaurant.

Dhaka has fooled me again.