What a Freakin' Day! (Part 5) The Bus to Birisiri



Mr Excitable is in the red looking serious

 About 25 minutes after that I had eaten 2 cucumbers and a carrot (they are sold from big metal bowls fresh from somebody's garden - the wallah peels them and washes them off with bottled water), gotten myself a warm pepsi (did I mention that I take refrigeration for granted at home?), and walked around the station a bit waiting for my bus to be ready to go.

A young man in business wear came up early on in my wait and said he’d like to “discuss” me (turns out that meant he wanted to chat). He followed me onto the bus when my happy young ticket selling friend found me my seat, and he sat chatting with me about his upcoming job interview and various other things about Bangladesh.

He told me he wanted a “friend” and tried to convince me to give him my phone number in Canada.

I politely refused about 27 times and then finally told him "it would greatly upset my husband if I was just giving out my phone number to men all over Bangladesh while I was travelling without him.  How would you feel if you were married and your wife came home bringing men's phone numbers?"

"Oh, you are right miss, not good, not good." After the 26th time (and several further clever attempts of “I can be BOTH friends, you AND your husband, it‘s okay!!) I think he got the point (laughing and smiling all the while), and the 27th came as he was on his way out the door in one final attempt that still got him no luck. “But you will forget me when you go to Canada. I should have your phone number, please?” Sorry dude, I don’t even have a phone number...

And because EVERYONE in Bangladesh has a cell phone, he thought I was lying - but how to explain this gypsy life to people I have no idea!

So, the bus gets going, we’re all in our seats (about 20 of us when the bus probably sits about 45) and the driver and his 3 wallahs start jockeying for position to get OUT of the freakin’ station. Buses are nose to nose, some bumper to tire, all of them trying to get out first ahead of the other like they all suddenly decided to leave at exactly the same time. MAN I hope I took some video of it, because it was CRAZY!

About 10 minutes, much bus slapping, yelling, and fist-shaking later the bus pulled away from the terminal and crossed into the insane traffic I’d hopped to get there in the first place.

We approached the curb, and the 3 boys who had been staring and giggling at me once we started to move leaped out of their seats, opened windows and one of them stood in the door yelling out “Birisiri! Birisiri! Birisiri!” and trying to attract more customers onto the bus. We did this the ENTIRE way north, the yelling, the honking, the insanity, it was a LONG ride!

About 4 hours into it I considered all of the stopping and starting and figured we were going to be about 2 hours behind schedule, and that it was likely I was going to be arriving in the dark.

Awesome.

Every once in a bit Smiley checked in on me, and when we were on the highway between yelling positions he checked to see if I was hungry or needed anything through charades - patting his tummy and making a sad face then pointing back and forth between me and his tummy... man he made me laugh, he was very cute.

We pulled off the highway twice for rest stops, and each time (since the interior lights were on, and I was in the front seat) a crowd gathered at the front and door to gawk. I didn’t get off the bus because I didn’t want to get lost, so I just stayed there getting stared at and hid behind my sunglasses in the evening light. It got dark sooner than later and then we were careening down the highway at full tilt in the dark - at this point I decided it was in my best interest NOT to watch the action through the front window to avoid giving myself more gray hair. Instead I read my guidebook some more.

When we finally hit Mymensingh I figured we were about an hour away - not bad, we’d be there around 730 or so, I could handle that! Hah, no way Jose, we still had 3 hours to go, little did I know!

About 6 hours into the drive (after the 2nd rest stop) the driver pulled the bus over to the side of the road, stood up and waved his hands in a cutting motion and went and sat in one of the chairs. We were not in a rest area, we were just partially pulled off the road and he was NOT budging from the chair, rubbing his hip (I thought: ouch, that looks like sciatica badness).


This picture is not mine,
but this is what many buses here look like!



Okay, the driver is done with driving now, so we're just sitting in the dark on the side of the road.

Awesome. (this is a very useful word!)

After much heated debate, one of the young ticket boys climbed into the driver’s chair and started the bus going again. He had a hard time with the stick to the point that I was pretty sure he’d never driven a bus before, and I found myself praying in the dark for a safe arrival and avoidance of all cliffs that were surely to continue on the roads ahead.

I was wondering at this point about the part in the guidebook that mentioned “a good part of the drive across bumpy unpaved backroards” and thought that the roads must have been cleaned up since they wrote 2 years ago because we were almost there and we hadn’t hit much in the way of unpaved roads (unless you count the narrow dirt and sometimes sand shoulders the bus was forced onto each time a huge truck came in the other direction taking up half our lane, but I‘m choosing to forget about all those times!).

Me and my big mouth (inside voice or not, the universe is ALWAYS listening!).

The universe delivered again, and before I knew it the double-laned paved roads gave way to a single-lane sometimes-dirt sometimes-paved with huge holes kind of pathway, and the new young driver decided to slow on down to about 40km/hr, white knuckled but still toughing it out.

Was he just nervous about driving in the dark?  Could he even see anything with the substandard headlights and the heaps of oncoming rikshaws and bicycles and HUGE trucks?  Do Bangladesh roads have pirates?  I don’t know about HIM, but *I* was becoming a silent wreck from my seat directly behind him.

I pulled my scarf back up over my head and leaned back in my seat trying to look anywhere but out into the dark in front of me.

About half an hour into the crawl a man stood up halfway down the aisle and started a huge yelling screaming match. Smiley became quite angry, as did the other men at the front of the bus, and I pulled my scarf up over my hair again (I was just starting to relax!) and sank a bit deeper into my chair staying out of the way as the bus once again came to a halt on the side of the road.

I’m *guessing* from the tone and gesticulations involved (I watched the scene from the driver’s big bubble rear-view mirror) that he was angry we were going so slow. I myself wanted him to shut the hell up unless he was gonna drive because the boy was doing the best he could, but this fight went on screaming and spitting red-faced for 10 minutes before finally the calmer men (some grandpas in Muslim dress) put seat to the more wired men and we continued on our crawl with everyone a little tense, but alive.

Jeepers guys, stress me out a little MORE why don't you??

What a Freakin' Day! (Part 3) The City-Bus Ride

Now I’ve read about these buses, the city buses, that the guide book and the internet warns you about. Heard about them, considered that I should actually try one out for myself, and of course once again the universe provides for everything I ask for!

I found myself with grandpa at a city bus stop, boys set up behind a folding card table apparently selling tickets. If I were at home I would be certain it was some kind of scam, but here in Bangladesh it was indeed boys selling tickets for the insanity that some here call a city-bus and they get me in the right line. When my bus pulled up I thanked grandpa for his help (and tipped him of course), and he and 5 young Bangladeshi men made sure to yell to the other 45 passengers on the bus about what stop I was getting off at and told them to make sure I didn’t miss my stop.



Kids sell flowers on the street
for extra money

 They hauled my bags onto the bus (I stopped arguing about doing it myself because they just waved me off anyway, lol) and plunked me into the front seat where I could see all the madness firsthand. No sooner had my left cheek hit the chair when the bus careened back out into traffic, everyone swaying from side to side like dice on the rearview mirror.

This little girl tried really hard
to get me to buy her flowers,
she was cute

I don’t know how many days I am into my trip at this point, but I am STILL not used to the amount of attention breathing garners me here. I put my earbuds in my ears (a little to deal with the MADNESS of Dhaka’s noisy traffic, a little so people think I can’t hear them as they are asking me over and over and over again to buy whatever it is they’re selling).

This boy came onto a later
bus but you can meet him now!

As we drove on, little flower wallahs (sellers), juice wallahs, newspaper wallahs and then some hopped on and off at will as soon as we slowed down enough for them to throw themselves through the door and they took turns walking up and down the aisle trying to dump a bit of their load for a few Taka. The bus had no actual DOOR, so they could literally just hop off and on as they chose, provided the ticket taker let them on (because sometimes he didn’t, but I sure didn’t have his system figured out!).

Far up in the distance is a traffic circle
creating gridlock in traffic

Traffic along the way was mildly insane... I say mildly because I had to pass through 2 traffic circles to get to the bus station, and that is a lawless circle on the road in this country - there is no merging, no yielding, just fighting for who goes when.  As a result, it takes roughly 15-30 minutes to get through depending on whether you (a) have the biggest scariest most dented oldest vehicle in the circle, or (b) you have a passenger that's willing to climb out of the realtive "safety" of the vehicle (arguable term, 'safety', in the city with the most traffic fatalities in the world!) to literally STAND in front of traffic so you can go through.

After what was almost an hour we pulled up beside what could only be the bus terminal, and out I hopped.

Phewph!! I made it!  Now to leapfrog the six lanes of traffic past the policeman to get to the station...

What a Freakin' Day! (Part 2) - The Wrong Bus Station

2. The Wrong Bus Station


So the night before I had been talking with Kassandra about buses, and reading (and rereading and rereading) the travel guide, and I’d written a few notes. Some of them were for this trip to Birisiri, another was for a trip to Khulna (heading south) which I put the kaibosch on, and of course all notes involved different bus stations. While still talking to Rosario on the morning I told him the station off the top of my head, and I didn’t realize until I’d already been stuck in traffic for 40 minutes after leaving the Embassy that I’d given him the wrong one. So, I figured “oh well!”, and still got let off 5 minutes later at the Green Line bus office in Kalabaggan.

I walked into the office (air conditioning and a place to set my bags down, ooooh-aaaah) and the grandpa told me “please have a seat,” so I did. Normal, right? When the boys behind the counter weren’t busy I stood up and had hardly opened my mouth to ask them about a ticket and they told me again (politely) to sit down and wait. Giggling quietly to myself, I sat down again an pulled out my water bottle.

A few minutes later grandpa came up and asked to see my ticket, and I told him I didn’t have one. He shook his head and walked away. I was very confused.

A few minutes after that I was bored of being polite and said at the counter “Sorry to interrupt, but how am I to buy a ticket for your bus if I sit on the bench over there? I would like to go to Birisiri or Mymensingh today”

“OH, Miss! You have no ticket? Oh, sorry sorry sorry (go k-pop!), much Banglish, and then finally “Oh, sorry miss, we do not have a bus that goes to Mymensingh or Birisiri.”
Oh. Oooooooookay.
Hmmm, she thinks… well, I know I should have gone to Mohakali, maybe they can take me or get me there??  I explain to them that I need to get to Mohakali and ask if they have a shuttle, or can tell me the best way to get there.

The boy behind the counter (after much back and forthing in Bangala between the set of them) gestures to grandpa and tells me to go with his uncle, so while I have no idea where I'm going (or at least how I'm going there) again I do what they say (with a smile even!).

Grandpa picks up my BIG bag (which, incidentally, was the size of him I’m sure) and refusing to give it over heads out all hunched over under the bag into traffic. To climb up the curb/meridian between the street I actually had to lift the bag for him, and he finally gave it back to me when we were out of traffic’s way safe on the other side of the street.

I found myself with grandpa at a city bus stop, boys set up behind a folding card table apparently selling tickets. If I were at home I would be certain it was some kind of scam, but here in Bangladesh it was indeed boys selling tickets for the insanity that some here call a city-bus and they get me in the right line. When my bus pulled up I thanked grandpa for his help (and tipped him of course), and he and 5 young Bangladeshi men made sure to yell to the other zillion passengers on the bus about what stop I was getting off at and told them to make sure I didn’t miss my stop.
They hauled my bags onto the bus (I stopped arguing about doing it myself because they just waved me off anyway, lol) and plunked me into the front seat where I could see all the madness firsthand...

More to come in Part 3!

The Wheels on the Bus

Well, most of the snow has melted off again, and truthfully I hope I don't see it again until next winter! It was disheartening to wake up this morning and see snow covering everything, but I guess it's really only mid-March, and spring doesn't really come until April, right? That's what I'm going to tell myself anyway... It's funny here to see everyone outside with their umbrellas in the snow. Children don't run around catching snowflakes on their tongues here because their parents have told them it's frozen acid rain (due to the pollution levels)... a little sad the kids miss out on that small bit of winter fun that I remember from my own childhood - they think I'm crazy when I tell them they should try to catch them (but I saw 2 of them trying it after school the other day). When they get home I know that their mothers will be convinced I'm trying to poison them... "Mommy, Shauna Teacher said it's okay, really, look at me!"

So here's a little bit about school that I haven't really mentioned much about. Every morning at school I start my day with a ride on the bus to pick up the kindergarten kids and bring them to school. Best Kids has 6 buses, and every week we alternate to a new one with a new driver and group of kids. Though the old teachers complain about it I think it's kind of nice because I get to meet all of the little ones and they get to know me a little. We chat and make funny sentences and otherwise kill time until we get to school ('look teacher, a green bus/blue bus/red bus/gray/bus/city bus/school bus...' Oh, my head...). I started on Bus 1 and this week I'm on Bus 3, so I'm slowly moving through the kiddies.

Each Monday so far since I started on my own buses the kids hardly talk at all - for that matter, they barely even look up from their seats they're so shy! However, by Wednesday they're full of stories and silly sentences and funny faces and they're excited to see me when the bus arrives, so it makes it easy for me to enjoy the morning ride!

 This isn't something that most kindergartens here do as there are usually Korean teachers who have this part of the job, but in my opinion it's brilliant business sense on the part of my boss! There are other parents with their children at each stop in the morning (waiting for another school's bus with a Korean teacher), and they seem to take great interest in our English comings and goings. I'm sure we get new students as a result of it, and the 10 second pick-up is really the only contact we get with our kindy parents (they're not allowed to observe classes at all), so it's easy to make a good impression.

On Monday I arrived 10 minutes late for the bus because I didn't know it had a different departure time (the kids live a bit farther away, so it leaves at 8:30 instead of 8:40 like the others). To add to my 10 minute delay, this is what the traffic looked like the whole way there thanks to the strange Korean aversion to driving in the rain... Needless to say we were up to 30 minutes late picking up the last of the kids, and we didn't actually get to school until 10 minutes after classes were supposed to have started, late late late! Since the Koreans don't seem to use phone trees, the poor driver had to field calls from each of the moms throughout the traffic jam... "I'm sorry, traffic is very bad on the freeway," "I'm sorry, we're still 15 minutes from your apartment, please go wait out of the rain," and though he could have he didn't once say "I'm sorry but my teacher was a dohdoh-head and compounded the traffic problem by arriving 10 minutes late!" He was excellent the whole way, didn't get frustrated once during the whole trip. I was really impressed, because I'd have come unglued myself!! He just put in a dvd of a Simon & Garfunkel tribute concert and chilled out until we got there, it was excellent (check out the dashboard GPS monitor that doubles as a TV)!!

Here are a few pictures of the kids on the bus and getting to school, I really think they're adorable and I'm in love with every one of them!

May thinks Ricky is the best thing in the world... he's a 2nd year student (6 years old) and she's 1st year (5 years old) and he absolutely adores it that she's in love with him

Esther was very proud that she brought her baby sister's puppet to school, the milkmaid from France (I didn't know milkmaids were a french thing??)... apparently puppet came to school for the day so she could go back home and teach the other puppets some English!

Daniel is very cute, quiet and shy on the bus but a monster in the hallways once he's on familiar turf... adorable...

Believe it or not, these 2 pictures are of the same Sally, I couldn't believe how much more grown up her 5-year old self seemed by the 3rd day on the bus with me - she was busy adoring Ricky with May when I took the side shot... and how cute is her sweater????

Best friends

Got there safe!