On the roads of Bangladesh....

I’m glad I don’t have to go out again to the villages…. Its not just the harsh conditions out there that I don’t like…. Its not just the absence of hot water to shower in everyday….. its not just the dust that surrounds wherever I go….

I’m glad that I don’t have to get into the car, and drive out on the highways of Bangladesh….. I cant say I share the same devil-don’t-care attitude that a lot of the people have here while on the roads…. They don’t even seem to value their own lives, if the way they cross the roads are anything to go by…. Why bother look both ways before crossing, when all the drivers will stop for you…. The way drivers zig-zag in between lanes with little (or actually no) regard for other drivers….





Which is why you see people sitting on top of buses, and you see little boys hanging on to the back of the buses…. Loud headlines, revealing tens of people who were killed in accidents on roads nationwide are the norm in the newspapers…. Why, on my way back from the villages a few days ago, I went past 2 accidents, where the buses were left in a carnage….

The scariest of all drivers on the roads here must be the bus drivers…. Crazy mother f#*%@#s is what I call them, but the locals call them “pagel sagol”, or crazy goats in Bengali…. With some of them doing 140 km/hr, its not funny…. In fact, its downright frightening….. whereas accidents back home involving buses does not yield that many casualties, people surviving crashes are the exception rather than the norm…..

And the lack of initiative by the government, the lack of interest in reducing the accident rate by the authorities is what I find very disturbing, especially considering the amount of time I spend on the roads while out in the villages, moving from location to location…. Maybe that's how they control their growing population.... people who have to take public transport, those who cant afford to buy their own cars would be the main target group for this population control measure.... or if you dont have the qualifications for any other job other than that of a truck driver..... cynical i know, but it sure seems that way to me....

On my way back, with 2 buses parked on each side of the road, we were about to drive in between them…. Well, until we saw the bus coming from the opposite side started flashing his lights at us….

My god, is he actually going to squeeze his way past the 2 buses, and us? Coz that just isn’t possible…. My car swerves and brakes at the tail end of the bus, and the bus on the opposite side speeds past the 2 buses, and drives past my car….. it was probably the most frightening experience I’ve ever faced…. More so as my car rocks from side to side as the bus sped past my car….. oh, and it wasn’t over, as a second bus went speeding past us…. WTF I thought…..



I hate being in Bangladesh for this reason…. Everytime I go out, its like a lottery…. Despite having drivers with amazing driving abilities, I fear for my life everytime I go out…. The allowance I get during my time in Bangaldesh just isn’t worth all this fear and emotional trauma….

Do you ever wonder whether you’ll come back home safely after a holiday overseas? Whether you’ll return from your outstation audit engagement in one piece…. I don’t, unless its to Bangladesh…..

Boy am I glad I’m back safely in Dhaka…. But my thoughts and prayers are out to my 2 colleagues who are still out there in the villages, and that they arrive safely in Dhaka come Monday…..

Feeling claustrophobic

Its the night before the weekend, I enter the lift from one of the top floors of the building with a colleague, joining another 2 men….. Moments later, the door closes and the lift descends towards the ground, the lift comes to a shuddering halt….. the lights then go off…. No, this cant be happening I think…. Not with all the audit files that I’m carrying…..

I’ve seen it happening on TV shows, I hear about it from friends who were unlucky enough, I never thought it would happen to me though….

But here I am, in a lift, stuck somewhere on the 12th floor, and yes, I’m still in Bangladesh…. Of all the places for this to happen…. Don’t panic I thought…. No one else in the lift is anyway…. So I guess I shouldn’t try to open the hatch and get out then….

One of the guys looked as if he knew what to do, he pressed the intercom, spoke into it (yeah, that’s something I cant do here in Bangladesh)….. we moved downwards towards the ground floor, and then, to my surprise, we ascended upwards again to the top floor….. where we stayed for a minute or so…..

And down we went again, this time all the way to the basement….. never been there, but thankfully, we didn’t stay there long, before we made our belated arrival onto the ground floor…. I have never felt that relieved in a long time, I was the first one out the door….. I hope it’s the last time I ever get stuck in a lift…..

Pictures of Spain are IN!!!

yep, i finally gotten around to putting in those pics in southern spain... of course they're hundreds more, but i cant fit them all in....

ah, how i miss spain already!!!! cant say i'd ever say the same about bangladesh :D

Finally, back to Dhaka....

21 January 2007

Today’s the day we finally make our way back to Dhaka..... its our 3rd weekend in a row that we worked, hopefully we’ll be able to take it a little easier….My team finished the audit of our last branch late last night, we only arrived back at the Training Centre at 9.30pm…. We woke up a little later than usual, and had a nice leisurely breakfast…. AIO and his team had come down from the Panchagarh region the previous night, and we travelled in 2 vehicles back to Dhaka

We stopped by at the Chatra High School on our way back to Dhaka, thanks to the promise made by the one of the Bangladeshi auditors to the students who mobbed SM and I a few nights ago…. That the Malaysian auditors would drop by their school for a visit…. And excited these students were when we made our way in…..

When we arrived at the school premises, like true superstars, our drivers brought our 2 vehicles across their football field, while all the students stare at the 2 four wheel drives making their way towards them….. the students who were at our Training Centre was happened to be there, and we were greeted with looks of delight when we opened the door….

It was quite amazing, the reaction our short visit made…. All the kids flocked around us before all the teachers appeared, and ushered us into the school library to show off their book collection…. We were then brought to the Headmaster’s room, where he chatted with the Bangladeshi auditors….. when we stepped out of his office, the students all came out and assembled in front of us in lines, before proceeding to sing the national anthem….







It was quite an unforgettable experience, though I suspect the Bangladeshi auditors enjoyed the adulation more than AIO or I did…. Still, it was nice to see all the delight in the faces of the students….

Visit to the Big Sea

19 January 2007
It’s Friday, it’s the beginning of the weekend here in Bangladesh…. But….. my team decided to work half a day so we’d be able to return back to Dhaka earlier…. Progress was slow though, which was to be expected I suppose, being a weekend and all…..

We didn’t get as much done as I had wanted, but we’ll just have to pick up the slack tomorrow…. We left for our half day sight-seeing trip after Friday prayers and lunch, an hour away from the client’s location…..

It was a man-made lake, measuring 1200 by 400 yards, which was excavated in the mid 18th century, called Ramsagor…. Ram meaning big, and Sagor meaning sea….. Ramsagor was dug up by a Maharaja in that region of Bangladesh…. Legend has it that the daughter of the Maharaja had walked into the lake, possibly for a bath…. And she was pulled in by a mythical creature, and never to be seen again….

Further inside the area are the ruins of what could have been a rest house of the Maharaja, and a deer enclosure, who were very happy for tourists to come and feed them fruits and peanuts…. They were so tame, they came right up to the fence, and ate the peanuts out of my hand….









Hehe, this time I didn’t forget to bring my camera :)

Never leave home without it k

18 January 2007
What a day to forget my camera…. You never know what you’re going to come across during your time here, and today was no different…. My team was on the way to one of the villages, in between paddy fields (as usual), when we encountered a slow and lumbering obstacle in our way…..

This obstacle I’m referring to was an elephant, with his handler…. I’ve no idea where they were headed, but the elephant strode purposefully towards our vehicle, used his body to block our path and preventing us from moving forward, and thrust his trunk out onto my window….. Oh, and I was sitting in front too, I guess he can tell us foreigners from the locals….

I thought it was a pity I didn’t have any food to give….. so the driver took out some Bangladeshi money, for me to give to the elephant instead…. Right, what would the elephant do with the money anyway…. So I gave the 20 Taka bill to the handler instead…. And when the handler put it into the elephant’s trunk, the elephant blew the money back in his face!!! This happened twice more before the elephant finally received it graciously, returned it politely onto his handler’s hand…..

And then only did the elephant move out of our path, and we were allowed to continue our journey to the client’s place….. what a day to forget my camera…..

17 January 2007
Well, I have written about the trouble facing Bangladesh now, with all the political uncertainty and all…. As I was on my way to another village, our car were set upon by a mob, hurling missiles at our 4 wheel drive…. We were forced to stop, and I was quite worried about the damage that would be inflicted by these people….

Hehe, when I say a mob, I meant 3 little kids… when I say missiles, I mean pieces of wood :D It is quite usual for kids to come and run up to our car, and for the bolder ones, they would even chase our car…..

The oldest of the 3 yelled at the other 2 boys, or possibly his brothers that we were about to drive by…. The 2nd boy then threw something at us, which hit our window…. I was quite glad that the window did not shatter….. the youngest boy, upon seeing his older brother throw something at us then followed suit….. the object hit my door, and the driver jammed on his brakes and got out of the car to inspect the damage…. He picked up a piece of wood, and asked the boys sternly who threw it…. The 2 young boys started crying, and I thought he was really going to give them a shelling….. but being the nice man that he always is, he left them and got back into the car, and we continued on our journey….. kids……

Well, it is always an adventure in Bangladesh, and today was no different…. The roads soon got too small for us to travel by car, and I was told to get on a motorbike driven by the client….

It was quite fun actually, to have the cold wind in your face…. If we were on the main roads, it probably wouldn’t have been very safe due to the absence of a safety helmet for me, but as the path was winding and VERY bumpy, we were going very slowly….

We proceeded to go in between paddy fields, banana estates, fruit orchards, and the many residential huts…. We even crossed 2 streams, where the water was so clear, you could see the tadpoles swimming….. I must say though, I had my doubts as to whether the bridges could hold the weight of the motorbike with 2 grown men on it…. You see, the bridge was made of very flimsy looking bamboo trunks, which looked old and weary, after prolonged exposure to the weather….. But we made it through in one piece…..

Oh, if you had watched the Amazing Race Asia last week, where the participants were made to mix cow dung and stick it on a wall, which would later be used as fuel to cook their food etc….. This is a common sight during my trips to the village…. They not only put it up on their housewalls, but on their fences and trees…. I noticed a house which even had their dung skewered and hung out to dry….. hmm…. I’m glad we use gas to cook our food…..









From left to right: View from the hut of one of the programme participants; a programme participants with the livestock provided by the programme; the living quarters of a programme participant; and dung slapped on the fence of a resident

Not something i'd forget anytime soon....

16 January 2007, even later in the PM
As we were in the middle of dinner, AR, one of the Bangladeshi auditors told me that I had some girls waiting to talk to me when we’re done with our meal…. Yeah right I thought, as AR is always, and I do mean always full of nonsense….

But to my surprise, after dinner as we left the dining area, he led me to the lounge instead of allowing me to retreat to my room as I usually do after dinner…. And true enough, there were 3 young girls in their teens, waiting for me, along with 2 older men…..

This little group soon grew into a small crowd, comprising of both boys and girls…. These kids were between 12-14 years of age, and were in the Training Centre I was staying in as part of a sanitation programme that they were attending….. they were filled with curiosity regarding the 2 strangers (SM and I), who looked so different from them, and who spoke English…. Actually, SM doesn’t look too different from the locals, if anything we tease him by calling him a local J but I guess they were curious about me, as unlike SM who wasn’t there at that time, I don’t join them for their nightly badminton sessions as I prefer to retire to the comfort of my bed, while I write my blog, or on many sad occasions, to continue with work…..

They asked many questions, such as my name, where I came from, my age, etc….. the going really got tough when they asked me what I thought of Bangladesh…. Hmmm…. Tough one…. Considering I cant wait to get out of here….. I answered truthfully however, by replying with a grin….. the people are very nice and hospitable…. And I LOVE the food!!! Which drew a hearty laugh from everyone….

The fun really started when SM arrived back from his client’s location. A very suspicious SM finally allowed himself to be led back to the small crowd, and it was the only time I have ever got to see SM speechless…. His expression was priceless, as he tried to figure out what was going on…. He finally warmed up to them, and after another 5 minutes, we left behind a group, who if possibly, was even more excited than before they got to talk to me…..

As for SM and I, I guess we finally got to feel what it was like to be celebrities, though its not something I would miss when I get back home though….. the less attention on me the better if you ask me!!!

16 January 2007, PM
We managed to finish work early today, or earlier anyway….. we left the Nilphamari Sadar office just before 5pm, and was told by the auditors from Bangladesh that we were going sight-seeing…..

Ok I thought, we deserve the break…. Where are we going, I ask….. a hindu temple was the answer…. It was situated about 45 minutes from where we were, in the region of Dinajpur…..

The temple is called the Kantanagar Temple, which was built more than 250 years ago, by a ruler who ruled the large region off South Asia, which covered India, Nepal and Bangladesh among others…..









It took nearly 50 years to construct the double storey temple…. However, we had to be happy by just looking at the temple from the outside, as no one was allowed to enter the temple…. Well, that, and it was well after closing time, we only managed to squeeze in, after telling the guard that I came from a land far far away :)

Kay Poh Chees, Ducks and Sing Songs

15 January 2007, PM
Its one of those things that irritates me, people who come and ‘kepoh’, even if they are not involved….. it happens sometimes back home, but it happens all the time here….

I interview one person, but many other people would also come and crowd around us….. I found it quite amusing though, when on one of my checks on the motorcycles earlier tonight, I walk out of the room along with my Bangladeshi auditor, and along with us, 3 others followed….. and as we reached the motorcycles, another 2-3 more people appeared….

Digressing a little, the Bangladeshis suffer a lot of power cuts, as they ration the power supply around the country…. So they need things like torch lights….. people also need mobile phones, regardless of where you are, and that includes Bangladesh…..

So here in Bangladesh, they actually combine the 2, torchlight and mobile phone…. You press a button, and a tiny light bulb lights up at the head of the phone, and voila, you have a beam of light which you can point at anything you fancy….

It must have been the only time I was glad to have those people around me, it sure made it easier inspecting those motorcycles!!!

15 January 2007, AM
I do a lot of travelling in Bangladesh…. As I travel from village to village, we take main trunk roads to little side alleys to get to where we need to go…. Many of the things I see include roadkill….. mainly dogs I think, not that I really want to know though….

Have you ever seen a duck waddle? To be precise, have you ever seen a duck waddle real quick, as it tries to hurry across the road before they become roadkill themselves…..

They strain their necks forward, shifting their weight from left to right and back to left…..While willing their bodies to move more quickly than its accustomed to…. This is difficult, as most of their body weight seems to be in their fat behinds which holds them back, hence it was quite a comical sight as they struggle to force their bodies forward….

Not so funny for the 4 ducks crossing the road though as they see our 4 wheel drive hurtle towards them at 100 km/hr…. not to worry, they made it safely across…. Well, there was one final duck that was left behind by his friends…. And in a desperate move to join his friends, he started flapping his wings in order to move more quickly…..

I don’t know whether he made it safely as he only attempted to cross as we passed him….. but you have to wonder why they didn’t just fly over the road though….

14 January 2007
I’ve always wondered why people would swim in icy cold water during winter…. I believe this happens annually in certain parts of Russia, South Korea and even in England too….. you also wonder how the cold feels like…..

Well, I may not know why they do it…. But I do now know how it feels…. It’s the middle of winter now in Bangladesh, and I’m stuck with cold showers ever since I moved to the countryside….

I cant say I really look forward to showers under such conditions…. You turn the shower on, and slowly put a leg in, pull out, then put the other leg in….. you take a deep breath, and then jump under the shower…..

It feels like your entire body is engulfed in a blanket ice, and you start to shiver almost at once…. Your teeth starts chattering, and you quickly soap yourself down to get the shower over with…. When you step out of the shower, your whole body feels numb, but only for a several seconds before you get hit by an extremely cold sensation again…..

Yeah, I now know how it feels like, but why people subject themselves to such situations is simply beyond me….. as for me, I cant wait to return to Dhaka, and to get my hot shower again….

13 January 2007
I take my place in the room, and a row of men and women are staring at me, and the other 2 Bangladeshi auditors with me…. One of them holds a tambourine, another holds a pair of metal like castinets, another has a bongo like instrument, while a fourth man controls an accordion….

They start singing a song, about how village people who go to a big city (I’m assuming they mean Dhaka), with their home village never far from their thoughts….. despite not understanding what was being said, I must say it sounded pretty good…..

10 minutes earlier
We were hard at work, when the Rural Drama Programme Organiser indicated to one of the Bangladeshi auditors, that we were invited to move to the room next door…. Why, I thought to myself…. We had so much work to do, I wanted to get it all over with and go back…..

Then I was told that the people involved in the Rural Drama Society were waiting for us, and they wanted to give us a short performance…. We felt obliged to go, and to my surprise, there were 6 men and 4 women, waiting for us patiently, and proceeded to introduce themselves , and wanted to know who we were…. Interesting how they wanted to perform for us despite not knowing who we were…..

20 minutes later
It turned out to be an interesting show, not something my EY colleagues who came with me to Bangladesh were able to watch….. but for now, its back to work for me!!!

Drama in Bangladesh

12 January 2007, AM
My phone beeps twice at 7.30am…. 2 messages, I thought…. Who would send me smses at this hour….. After all, this is my Bangladeshi line, and everyone should still be asleep, as being a Friday, it is the start to the weekend in this Muslim country….

Groggily, I reach for the phone…. Open the messages…. Oh, its my manager from home…. With more updates….. No, I’m being told the teams are to stay where we are as the situation has now improved with the resignation of the acting President of Bangladesh…. Sigh…..

2 minutes later, my phone rings, its my EY colleague from another team located 100 km from us, asking me, now what….. a few smses to the team and the manager, followed by a phone conversation with the same manager followed….. we are now staying in Bangladesh, to continue with work for today, and we will wait till the afternoon to see how things are before we make the decision on what to do next….

All this uncertainty…. All the strain and stress has returned, two fold in fact…. I’m not happy, very much distressed, and worried for my safety, as well as that of the team….. with us breaking up into 4 teams to cover more areas also makes it more difficult to stay connected with each other…. I cant contact the 4th team, I can only hope that he has received my smses, as he has not responded to any of my attempts to get in touch with him…..

I’m so tired of this country, my morale is now non-existant….. If my last trip here in July was tough, what with the lousy weather, frequent electricity cuts and horrible living and working conditions, this audit has turned out to be a god-damned nightmare….. What on earth did we do to deserve all of this…. Why aren’t we being brought back home…..

11 January 2007, PM
We were informed that a nationwide curfew had been put in place, everyone is to be indoors from 11pm to 5am…. Not that it would affect us, we should be back in our quarters by then…. Worse come to worse, we would just bring work back with us and work in our bedrooms…. So it would be business as usual….

Or so we thought…. It was a surprise when I received a call from one of the other teams, informing us that his driver had been notified by someone at the client’s head office to bring us back to Dhaka tomorrow morning…. a lot of confusion followed, and many phonecalls later, it turns out that the situation in Dhaka had deteriorated to such an extent that the client felt that it was too risky for us to stay out performing the audit, hence the decision to bring us back to Dhaka, and even possibly sending us home…..

As we have already started the audit, the general feeling among the team members is to finish it off, so we wont have to come back up north here again…. However, in our conversation with one of the branch staff of the client here, we were informed that the northern region of Bangladesh where we are now stationed is the opposition strong area, hence the likelihood of further violence spreading from Dhaka and arriving here where we are is very real…..

Several more phonecalls home to our manager later, we were told to pack our bags and return to Dhaka tomorrow morning, and take the next available flight home….. well, so that is that then we thought, I could feel the tension within me since we arrived in the midst of all this conflict slowly subside….

Oh, and to celebrate the decision to return, the 2 teams played badminton for the rest of the night J

11 January 2007, AM

Delighted screams greeted us upon our arrival at the village households…. Our purpose of the visit is to verify the asset transfer process of cows, chickens and goats to the beneficiaries of the poverty reduction programme that we’re auditing…. Of course the screams were from the kids, who were really excited to see us…. As we left the car, they stared at our 4 wheel drive, fascinated by their own reflection, staring back at them…. With silly grins over the dirt covered faces….

Their natural curiosity also got the better of them, and they started to walk after us… everywhere we go…. The adults would try shoo-ing them away, and they would scatter in multiple directions before reassembling around us again in 3 minutes…..

As we were walking around the villages, I also observed the behaviour of the livestock…. The little chicks would follow their mother everywhere, and mimic her every move…. Every scratch on the ground followed by a peck by mummy would be imitated by all her chicks….. However, 2 ducklings adopted by a hen though behaved very differently, with the mother having to follow her lil kids…. They moved as a pair everywhere, and unlike the chicks, showed no fear, waddling in between people with little hesitation….. The chicks and ducklings were so cute….. the simple things that would make me smile if I were someone who lived in these villages…..

10 January 2007
We moved out of Dhaka with a feeling of trepidation, would the demonstrations that were so active (and violent) over the past 3 days affect us? The last thing we wanted is to be caught in the political crossfire and get into trouble….

So it was with great relief that we moved out of Dhaka without coming into contact with any demonstrations…. We were luckier than our manager, who got stuck in many demonstrations on her way to the airport….apparently, she saw people getting beaten by the police….

Once we left Dhaka, I relaxed, and tried to enjoy the sights…. As I was on my way to regions that I had gone to previously in July, hence the sights were familiar, and not so exciting…..

We stopped by in Bogra for lunch with the other 3 teams….. it was a tiring 4 hour drive, but good to still be with the rest of the EY team…. From there, it was another 4 hour drive to the northern region of Rangpur together with another team…… we will spend the night here at the Training Centre before moving onto villages 75 km from here…..

However, the announcement of travel restrictions due to the unstable political situation means that we have to readjust our working schedule and work a lot faster….. we somehow have to shave off around 4 days off our schedule in order to return to Dhaka before the next nationwide blockade on the 21 January, which is the eve of the national elections…..

I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes…..

Off to Start The Audits

9 January 2007, 11.30pm

We’re going out to the branches tomorrow morning…. We have got all the documents printed, I’ve just finished packing all my things I’d need when I’m at the various branches…..

I’ll be going to 2 different regions in Bangladesh, both up north, about 9 hours drive from Dhaka…. I will be gone for a bit over 2 weeks, I’m sure it will be tiring, as we will be auditing 4 very big branches…..The decision to go was only made this afternoon at 3pm, and we will be departing as planned, assuming the strike announced by the opposition party is not extended….

The situation here is very tense now, what with running street battles between protestors and the police…. I’m sure everyone sees it on tv, reads about it in the newspapers…. We are concerned about the situation, but we are assured by the client that we will be safe… apparently they do not attack foreigners….

The uproar is due to the elections being held on the 22 January 2007 by the ruling party, but the opposition parties have denounced the government, and have announced that they will boycott the elections…. As such, many foreign governments have declared that they will not recognise the results of the elections….

Another strike is expected to be announced on the 14th January, but as we are no longer in Dhaka, our movement will no longer be affected….. However, if the elections are held as announced, we expect trouble a couple of days after the elections…. And as we are scheduled to complete our audit and travel back to Dhaka on the 24th, we will have to see what the situation is like before making the drive back to Dhaka….

The thought of having to stay out longer than we have to doesn’t appeal to me…. I’m sure that my EY team members feel the same way….. well, I suppose all I can do is pray for the team’s safety, and hope for the best…..

Lost in Bangla Land.... again....sigh.....

The day has finally arrived…. We’re off to Bangladesh…. During the trip to the airport with my Senior Manager, my phone rang, with one of my team mates who had already arrived at the airport telling us that our flight was delayed by more than 2 hours…..

As we sat in the plane, waiting to take off, we noticed the technicians performing repair works on the wings of the plane…. And so the prayers started for a safe trip to Dhaka…. A safe trip it was, but a peaceful one it wasn’t…. We had a screaming baby sitting 2 rows ahead of me….

If that wasn’t bad enough, security was really tight at Zia International Airport, Dhaka…. How tight was the security you ask? Armed security guards greeted us at the airport the moment we got off the plane…. Quite a different reception as compared to the tourists flying into Malaysia during the Visit Malaysia Year 2007…..

2 of my colleagues were stopped by the immigration officers…. Not that it was a big problem, it was resolved fairly quickly…. We were also asked to put our bags through the X-Ray machine, which is unusual as foreigners are usually allowed to walk through uninterrupted…. A colleague of mine was also stopped for his suitcase could be checked, where they proceeded to ruffle through his belongings and asked him all sorts of questions regarding his clothes and medicine…..

This could be due to the uncertainty brought about by the looming general election, to be held on 22 January 2007…. In view of the general dissatisfaction with the Government, the opposition parties have stated that they will boycott the elections…. Instead, many public demonstrations, sometimes violent, are held, with many people being arrested….

The weather was cold in Dhaka, possibly 10oC or so…. Good that I had brought along my jacket…. But it only means that I’ll be facing even more colder conditions in the northern parts of Bangladesh for the audit of branch outlets of the client….

Well, what with the unstable political situation and the cold weather, this could be the most challenging audit in Bangladesh yet!!

Jetlagged!!!

I’m jetlagged…. Never thought i'd say it, but sleeping isn’t easy.... I go to bed at night, only to wake up at 2am, and I’m unable to fall asleep again till 5….. then I’m up again barely 2 and 1/2 hours later to go to work….

Post holiday syndrome, that’s what I call it…. Recovering from your holidays, working is the last thing you’d want to do…. And coming from Europe, with a 7 hour difference, getting enough sleep is indeed a huge challenge…..

And no, I don’t take coffee, hence that’s not an option…. Yes, I’m one of those that cant take coffee…. Oh well, walking around does help, as does short quick chats with friends in keeping me awake in the mornings at least….

Not that I’m that stressed…. I’m still preparing for the trip to Bangladesh, and no, its not something I look forward to…. Am sure my relatives in Bangkok will be dismayed that Bangladesh has moved ahead of Thailand as my 2nd home, as I spend more time in Bangladesh than I do in Thailand….

Oh well, if everything goes well, I’ll finish the engagement in time to spend Chinese New Year in Bangkok with my family, so that’s something to work towards to!!!

Highlights of Southern Spain

Spain turned out to be fabulously fabulous…. I thoroughly enjoyed myself there, despite joining my families 2 days late…. But it wasn’t enough to spoil what turned out to be a lovely holiday….

I didn’t really get to see much of Madrid, and my only disappointment was not going to the Bernebeau Stadium, home to Real Madrid (even though I am more of a Barcelona fan)…. After all, it was a mere 6 minute walk away…..

But visits around the southern parts of Spain yielded many breathtaking scenery, stunning architecture, beautiful landscaped gardens, hungry monkeys and very friendly people…..

The highlights of the tour had to be the Alhambra and the ancient mosque, which was later converted into a cathedral…. This is not unsurprising as Southern Spain was once a stronghold of the Muslim empire in the 9th century, which was later taken over the by the Christians in the 13th century…..










The trip to Gibraltar also proved to be delightful, where we were driven over the airport runway to reach the city centre…. There are more cars (70,000 of them) compared to people, it is so safe in Gibraltar that people do not lock their doors and windows…. Crime rates are so low, hardly anyone is ever arrested, the prison in Gibraltar holds a maximum of 19 people, which has proven more than adequate over the years…. And the apes…. Apparently, Winston Churchill said that everyone must take good care of the apes, as should there be no apes in Gibraltar, Gibraltar will cease to belong to Britain…. But the apes proved to be very comfortable in the presence of humans, as shown in the photos attached….











I also attended a flamenco dance performance, which used to be a form of expression (singing and dancing) by gypsies in the Andalucian region of Spain, of how they tell their life stories…. We had dinner, while the food was so-so, the performance was a whole lot better…. The costumes were colourful, the dancers fabulous…. Whether they used castinets, fans, or just plain tap-dancing, we enjoyed the 1 and ½ hour show….










I was very sad to have to go home, for obvious reasons…. It also meant I had to go back to work, which also meant that I would be departing for Bangladesh by the end of the week…. Not something that I look forward to….. but at least I will take the memories (and photographs!!) of Spain along with me!!!

Ed's Note: Apologies over the lack of photos, will post them as soon as I can get a fast enough connection to attach it....

I'm Off to Spain!!!

I’m finally on my way to Madrid to rejoin my family…. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m not going to think about all the drama that had prevented me from joining my family as scheduled….

But with London being on such high alert due to imminent terrorist threats, it was going to be a trial in itself to board the plane and leave Heathrow…. Long queues are the norm now, with all bags and coats to be opened and checked…. Even belts had to be removed and put through the X-ray machine….

There were very strict regulations concerning bringing on fluids of any kinds on board the planes…. Any gels, toothpaste, medicine, baby instant formula had to be packed in transparent plastic bags which would then be inspected by security personnel…. They were helpful enough to have posters illustrating such rulings, which included a statement which allowed containers containing any liquids below 100ml onto the plane….

But the implementation of such rulings leaves a lot to be desired….. I had a little bottle of water, containing 100ml of drinking water, which I packed into one of the transparent bags provided…. So you can imagine my surprise when I was stopped and told rudely that I was not allowed to bring it in…. Despite me pointing out the ruling on the poster, my protests were brushed aside, and I was not allowed in….

What irked me most was the manner in which I was treated…. Here you are, being singled out as a terrorist target, hence such security measures are to be expected…. But with treating visitors with such disrespect, it is difficult for me to sympathise England for the position that they now find themselves in…. it is precisely such high handed behaviour which got themselves into this situation in the first place…..

Oh well, I still leave London with many happy memories, such as my visits to all the tourist attractions I never got to visit during my days there as a student…. Or my reunion with my friends and ex-colleagues….. plus, there is a lot more for me to look forward to, after all, I am on my to Spain…..