Bicyles, Biriyani, and Boats

So while DP was in town he and Jon decided to ditch the old ball-and-chain for a day and head out on town with just da boyz. They headed down to Old Dhaka to see the sites, especially the Buriganga river, which is an essential place for any Dhaka toursit to see and get a picture taken on (see September blog posts for our earlier photos from the river). Jon also wanted to witness the black water of the river which he had heard about and seen pictures of, but not seen for himself. Apparently during the dry months the river gets so low and slow that it gets bogged down with pollution from the city and turns black and oily (who wouldn’t want to see that?).
Old Dhaka is always a fun and interesting place because there are a lot of Hindus in this part of the city (especially on Hindu street) so you can sort of experience a separate and distinct culture from the broader Muslim culture of Bangladesh. Jon had only been down to Old Dhaka once before during Durga Puja (a Hindu festival) so he thought it would be nice to see when there wasn’t a big festival going on. Apparently though there is always a festival going on there because when they got to the heart of Hindu street they stumbled upon some festival. While Jon was trying to get pics, which seemed to be hug-giving accompanied by music (what a great festival!) a young woman approached Jon (actually she seemed to be following him, but had now started talking to him) and began saying something in Bangla. Jon finally figured out that she was saying snake and realized that she must have been a snake charmer. It was interesting, because although Jon had been looking forward to seeing some snake charming while here when actually confronted with the opportunity he was quite nervous about it (this wasn’t helped by the fact that the woman kept pretending her hand was a snake and striking toward his face). He asked DP if he wanted to see a snake charmer and he said ‘no’ (thankfully) and they went to check out the festival some more.
As Jon and DP stood taking pics of the hugging, a man and a woman whose faces were painted, stepped up to Jon and started painting his face. At the same time the woman began painting DP’s face. Jon and DP soon realized that the face painters were expecting to be paid for the un-asked-for services and obliged. DP gave more taka to the woman than Jon so he got a pretty extravagant series of dots and lines. Pics of the face painters are below. Sorry no pics of Jon since his pic is on DP’s camera back in the US.

Jon and DP decided to move on, partially out of concern that if they stuck around their faces would be completely covered in paint. They continued to wander around the narrow streets of Old Dhaka while people pointed and laughed at their painted faces. They decided they needed to get the paint of and looked around for a faucet or something. Then they realized that it rubbed right of without water just as they wandered upon a communal faucet. Across from the faucet was a jewelry store so DP bought some fancy carved bracelets made of conch shell and then they headed for Bicycle street to buy some rickshaw art.

Bicycle street is actually an area more than a street where you can pretty much by anything associated with bicycles, tricycles, motorcycle or scooters and as was eventually discovered fabric shops (which originally seemed out of place) that sell rickshaw art. After getting some rickshaw art it was finally time to head down to the river. On the way down to the river DP was distracted by a biriyani (fried rice with meat) restaurant, and since he seemed to be on a quest to find the perfect biriyani while here he had to order some. It was fun because Jon had never actually been to one of these Bangladeshi style restaurants where they rush you in, sit you down and throw a plate of food in front of you (because they only serve one thing). They also brought some drinks out and said it was like Sprite so Jon gave it try (He obviously wasn’t having any biriyani). Sprite, he thought, how refreshing, so he gave it a try – it is nothing like sprite. It was possibly one of the most disgusting thing he has ever ingested. So Jon, of course, told DP to give it a try – needless to say he did not like it either. Later internet research revealed that it was most likely Borhani. If you’re interested in making some for yourself here are the ingredients:
Plain Yogurt (white & sour) - 1/2 kg (1 kg = 2.2 pound)
Mint Leaf (pudina leaf) paste- 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander Leaf (dhania leaf) pest- 1/2 teaspoon
Green chilly paste - 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin powder - 3/4 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 1/2 teaspoon
White mustard seed powder - 3/4 teaspoon
Black pepper powder - 1/2 teaspoon
White pepper powder - 3/4 teaspoon
Sugar - 3 teaspoon
Tomato sauce- 1 teaspoon
Chat salt (not normal white salt, it’s called BIT NUN) - 1/2 tea spoon
Normal salt - 1/2 teaspoon (as per taste).

It is hard to imagine with such a delcious recipe, that it was so foul...

After that they headed to the river. Jon was excited to see and to show off the black water. The water was indeed black, and the smell was really something as well. It was really quite disturbing how different it was from only a few months prior. The boat had originally been hired for an hour, but DP had the idea of just having him drop us at the other side and then walking back across the bridge. Here are some pics from the boat ride:

The other side of the river was interesting. It is technically not Dhaka and the CNGs were a different color! Lots of people wanted to talk and it was fun being in a less-traveled area of town. After walking across the bridge Jon and DP wandered through the crowded maze-like streets of Old Dhaka, through sari-ville, suit-ville, hijab-town and finally back to biriyani-corner. It was a nice excursion that really would not have been possible with Atticus because of all the walking and the extremely crowded streets. And amazingly neither Jon nor DP got arrested, detained, or into any other trouble on the journey, which Sam was fairly confident was going to happen. Maybe on another journey…

After Old Dhaka Jon and DP met up with Sam and Atticus at Bashundhara City. That was also a fun contrast of Old and New Dhaka. Below are some more pics from the day.