Birisiri to Srimongol (the short version)

I am safe and sound having gone from Birisiri to Dhaka and now to Srimongol, Bangladesh.  I have written and written emails and blogs but I cannot upload from my netbook so for now it's just a progress note!  In the morning (or maybe later tonight) I'll try transferring everything to my zip drive (well, the writing at least) and see if I can send it. 

Short version... Bangladesh (especially once you LEAVE Dhaka city!) is incredible.  While the first couple of days on my own had me a liiiiiiittle freaked out I am now mostly settled in nicely and have adjusted to the country.

I spent (remember, this is the short version) 3 days in Birisiri, and I have to say, that place absolutely stole my heart.  I arrived around 930pm after my 7 hour bus ride turned into a 10 1/2 one (apparently I did not catch the express bus, lol, it was INSANE).  I found my way to the YWCA by rikshaw (my first real rikshaw ride at night down dark delapidated village roads, yay!) and made an incredible friend in Animesh who is running the guesthouse.  He is a member of the Garo tribe.  While I visited he absolutely treated me like his little sister.  He showed me around the Garo village, brought me to people's homes, took me for tea and snacks at the local shop, and toured and introduced me around for a couple of days.  I had originally planned 2 days there but couldn't leave, I loved it there so much.  I am still thinking of going back again before it's time to leave Bangladesh.

When it did come time to leave Luis from the guesthouse walked me to the main street to help me figure out the buses.  When he asked around what we eventually got (Animesh showed up again to help me) "I'm sorry, the bridge is accidentally down" - I couldn't catch a bus out because one (or 2, I later saw) of the bridges on the way to the villages collapsed!  Animesh hired me a motorbike that took me to Mymensingh (yay for motorcycles!) and I found the bus there (got the last seat too because they were so nice to me!) to Dhaka.  Birisiri so touched my heart, especially my new big brother, and I cried on leaving and halfway down the highway to Mymensingh (which I blamed on the wind in my eyes). 

When I got to Dhaka I checked into a hotel there for the night, and first thing this morning took a rikshaw (let me just say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to find either of those things in Dhaka before 7am, I walked for 20 minutes!!) and then CNG to the train station to catch the train to Srimongol.  In Birisiri Animesh's uncle Anthony (another amazing guy, he's the social worker over at the Compassion Project (I might have the name wrong, I'll check later)) phoned his friend Phila in Srimongol (the next stop on my agenda) and asked him to show me around when I arrived in town (which was today!).

Phila (pronounced Fee-La) is the Chief of the nearby Kassi tribe and the director of the local Compassion Project, they neglected to mention those things to me, lol... He met me at the train station once I found my way to a phone, and he has been absolutely fabulous, without a doubt.  He found me a guesthouse strightaway (run by a friend of his), and spent his whole day showing me around (more on that later).  I met his daughter and his wife and took the tour of his village, it was fantastic.  Tomorrow morning he's going to pick me up at 10 (or "sometime before 11", Bangladesh-time) and take me over to his project, I can't wait!!

For now I'm going to go back to my room and get cleaned up (I'm covered in a fairly thick layer of grime from riding around on a motorcycle all day!), walk up the street and get some dinner (I'm quite over-the-top with peckishness), and then come back here to see if I can get gmail to open (so far no luck, which is how I ended up here!).  I'll also come back armed with a possible update on the other things if I can use my zip drive, but NO promises at this point!!

(OOoooh, there is some TERRIBLE yowling (maybe singing?) going on on a mic outside, it is baaaaaaad!)

Talk to you soon, don't worry about me I'm excellent: happy, peaceful and content (if thinking a liiiiitle bit about how I might be able to live in Bangladesh for a bit, knowing full well that this is the danger of me travelling to new countries, lol), and if you think I'm thinking about you, you're right.