It is illegal for Bangladeshis to drink but not for foreigners in the country. Very few places serve alcohol though, since the market is pretty limited. We only know of 2 restaurants - both on the pricey end - that serve it, though there may be a few more within the ultra-ritzy restaurant and hotel bar scene in which we don't really take part. There is also the American Club, which is the recreation center for Americans and one of the many different "clubs" for foreigners here, but it is a really gross scene on a lot of levels and super expensive to join (70 USD a month for a family membership - that allows you to swim in the pool, play tennis, and BUY liquor in the pricey bar) - not really our style either. For us, the only realistic options for a cold beer are the Korean restaurant and the Japanese restaurant. Both are pretty mediocre food-wise, (although anyone who knows Atticus knows that Japanese food is always his first choice in cuisine) and expensive for the level of quality, but they have cans of Heineken for about 150 - 200 taka (2-3 USD). On occasion it is well worth the trip, but we don't eat out that often and the trip out is sometimes just too tiring at the end of the day.
Thus, at the end of a long, hot, exhausting day, a cold beer at home would be really really nice. Despite our love of most things in the 'desh, we have been missing such little joys. We had a couple bottles of liquor (a gin and a whiskey) that we bought at duty-free in the airport but were allowed to bring in one liter each, and we recently finished it off. We had to act.
It turns out that there is ONE place to legally purchase liquor for foreigners. Sam knew of it from previous visits, but had never gone. We had enough information though to get more information from the internet, and soon we had some moderately to very unclear directions for how to get to it. The place is known casually as The Warehouse, but it is really called the Duty Paid Shop of MK something and sons importers. It is in an area called Abbas Garden, or the street was called Abbas Garden, but it was off Airport road (not to be confused with New Airport Rd) off the flyover (overpass), but don't get on the flyover...you get the picture- it was a weird address and crappy directions. Still, we marked the general area on the map and set out with confidence that our CNG driver would find it or could read the map or would ask for help.
When we showed the CNG driver the map it was clear that he had no idea how to read it. OK, well scratch the map plan then. Jon has a sense of where we are though, so he can just tell Sam and she can tell the driver. Traffic on Airport road was horrible (naturally, since it was between 4am and 2am) and we sat for a while in the hot jammed traffic and then we finally got to the flyover. The CNG is confused. 'Go on the road by the flyover, (the frontage road) but not the flyover' we say. He does, but we realize then and there that we just don't have enough information - we need to ask someone. We pull over and try to ask a few people - some won't come over, others don't know, then finally a guy is like 'oh yeah, I know where it is' and tells the CNG driver just where to go (maybe). It was loud, Sam was on the other side of the CNG from the guy talking and from what she picked up (it seemed like in retrospect) he said the right directions. However, as much as Sam was trying to listen and understand, the CNG driver was really not paying attention. It was like he lost interest two words into the directions and just heard make a left, so he chose a random street and turned left.
Meanwhile, Jon is feeling like this random left is completely wrong. It doesn't make sense with the way the address is written either. So we tell him to ask again. We ask some cops- they don't know. We ask more people, they don't know. We turn around and go back to the big main road and pull over. The driver goes into a shop and tells Jon to bring the map. They don't know. Then the driver (who so badly wants out at this point but can't bring himself to do it yet) tries to convince Sam that maybe the random building across the street (the communications office for Bangladesh Something-or-other) is where she wants to go. 'No, we don’t want to go to that place. We want to go to Abbas Garden.' we say. Then a guy from the shop runs next door and gets someone else and they finally get it conveyed to the CNG driver how to go.
So we head back in the direction we had turned around from. In fairness, it is a confusing route -you have to go past the flyover, and turn around on the frontage road to come back the direction you came and then turn off there onto a little dirt road marked Abbas Garden. You then go around a semi-sketchy corner to find a not sketchy at all shop with a bunch of security guards out front that seem like they are just hanging out. We had finally, happily, found our place.
We told our CNG driver to wait and went inside, walked up to the counter/reception desk, which had a price list and some display bottles, and chose a 24 pack of Heineken and a bottle of rum. Not exactly cheap here either - but less than a restaurant (by a little...). We showed our passport, got our liquor out front, and hopped back in our ride home. The ride home took about 15 minutes- the journey there had taken about 45 minutes to an hour! All in all though, the errand took less than 2hours, and in Dhaka, that's not too bad!
Later we enjoyed a few cold beers on our balcony (Atticus joined the fun but only had water, obviously) and relaxed. It was great. Next time the journey wont be so dramatic now that we know where it is (Jon actually knew all along and was perfectly right in his map marking, but didn't feel confident enough to argue for a particular route - next time he will!).
Oh, and what was Atticus doing during all of this? Just chattering away the whole time about this and that; literally the whole time from start to finish, he never expressed a moment of stress, irritation or impatience. He is amazing!
Here is a picture of Jon enjoying the beautiful feeling of drinking a cold beer shirtless on a hot humid night.
I got dragged by my friends once to that shop so I could buy them alcohol. Felt like I was buying for freshmen again, but instead these Bangladeshis were all 28+.
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