Where Teenage mutant Ninja's Really Come From

Our weekend actually started out a week ago. Let me clarify. Last week I noticed an email that had been forwarded to us, from a women that was here visiting Dhaka and was hoping to get a group together for a tour. Tours in Dhaka are sort of a self help experience. You need to fill x number of slots. If you don't, you still have to pay for a minimum number of people. So our intrepid heroine, set out to find other willing participants. The destination was Old Dhaka City.

A group was gathered and we agreed on a meeting place. There were eight of us in all. A fascinating array of Americas all in Dhaka for various reasons. I could tell you what each of them does, but then I'd have to k..well, you get the idea.  For the most part we had never met before, which made it all the more interesting and we set off eager for the adventure.

Friday morning traffic was reasonably light for Dhaka and we made good time heading across town. We parked at a small park and setting foot to pavement, began our adventure!

The weather was brutal, but the guide was used to the weather and wasting no time getting started, he took off like an Olympic sprinter. I did a quick assessment of each of the six individuals that we were with. 20's to 30's. Fit. Athletic....we were screwed. I was determined not to be the pantie waste senior citizen grandma that slowed up the group. I was secretly hoping that one of them would go down first in the blistering heat.

We seemed to be in an awfully hurry as we raced through the streets. Every time I lifted my camera for a shot Derek would grab my elbow and hustle me forward.

Just as my frustration began to bubble to the surface, I realized that we were heading to the waterfront! Now I was willing to hurry. This was awesome, I love water! We were about to stand on the banks of the Ganges! Once we got there, I realized as I stared down into the thick black muck, that calling this particular section of the Buriganga (Old Ganges), a river, might be an overstatement. It was more accurately, a 25-50 ft deep boiling cesspool of toxic waste and garbage that boats floated on. Well, some sank, but the rest floated.

Cuz there should always be a goat. Just sayin'...

Derek shooting some locals...er...photographing some locals.

The Ganges (or Buragangas) river

In the spirit of edifying your learning experience, I am going to include the following paragraph from wikepedia about the Burigana. Please do not attempt to eat while you read it. It reads as follows:

"...the Buriganga river is afflicted by the noisome problem of pollution. The chemical waste of mills and factories, household waste, medical waste, sewage, dead animals, plastics, and oil are some of the Buriganga's pollutants. The city of Dhaka discharges about 4,500 tons of solid waste every day and most of it is released into the Buriganga.[citation needed] According to the Department of the Environment (DoE), 22,000 litres (5,800 US gal) of toxic waste are released into the river by the tanneries every day"...Yum!

Needless to say, anything still alive in it probably has twelve eyes and four mouths and will one day climb out from the depths and destroy the city in an epic battle.

Still, it was exciting seeing all the boats and activity. A group of men were egging us on asking us to take their picture. I can never figure out why they like this so much since they will never get to see the picture, so I pulled out a small Polaroid camera that I carry with me and took a shot. I showed them how to hold on to it and wait for the picture to appear and enjoyed their expressions of disbelief as they saw their faces emerge from the white sheet.

I was trying to get an interesting shot of something or other when Derek took my elbow (ruining my shot) and said "come on! You're holding everyone up"! I looked up confused.  You mean I was keeping them from standing on the bank? To my surprise, I was suddenly being pushed into one of the long, canoe like wooden boats that shuttles back and forth across the river. Oddly enough, there had not been any mention of a boat. The next thing I knew we were each perched precariously along the edge of the boat, (the actually edge, not seats) heading out to the middle of the river.

A great group of people

This is the edge that we were sitting on.

Once on the river we encountered a melee of activity. It was like a Beatles video with no music. Men in Lungi's (Lungi's are like a Bangladeshi kilt for men) sat in boats, holding large black umbrella's to keep the sun off. One man held his umbrella in his hand and worked the boats oars with his foot. Woman sat on the banks of the river hand washing plastic garbage bags, then laying them out to drive. I was beyond horrified as we looked past the drying bags to see half a dozen young boys swimming in the water! Surely this was a recipe for disaster! The sweet, playful boys only possible fate after swimming in such toxic H2O was a future as a mutant super-villain!

Off to the left dozens of sheets hung on lines, floating in the breeze as they dried. It was oddly beautiful. Our guide explained to us that this was the laundry for the hotels. Yes, my friends, you too can stay in a hotel in Dhaka and sleep on the finest sheets, beaten clean in a river so polluted that it cannot sustain life!

It got even better when we passed more sheets line drying over on the right bank and were informed that these were the linens for a local hospital. Yup, hand sterilized in toxic waste.

At one point, we pulled up along the bank to see a number of people sifting through huge wicker baskets of something that shined and shimmered in the heat like mounds of broken glass. It turned out to be all manner of plastics, being crushed and broken down to sell to China for recycling. It was oddly beautiful looking, all laid out among the stones in neat groups. The guide told us about the process as men and children alike clustered to where we had put ashore. They chattered excitedly, star struck by the sight of a boat full of Americans.

The guide mentioned that they all loved candy so Derek immediately reached into his magic back pack and with all the flair of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, produced a large handful of Atomic Fireballs and lemon-heads! The kids were so excited they looked like they might faint. Derek achieved immediate rock star status! Children and grown men clustered around him as he passed his candy around. At last, a place a grown man could give candy to children and not seem like a perv! We clamored back into the boat, happy to have made their day.

We traveled a bit further and finally turned across the river and headed for the other side. On the far bank, a man in a lungi stood on his boat, thoroughly lathering his body. He scrubbed away, getting sparkly clean, undoubtedly preparing for a hot date later on. Though we didn't stick around long enough to see it, one can only assume that he then rinsed off with, you guessed it, the mutant creating water from the river.

Stretched along the bank, were dozens of half round...things...lining the river. The guide explained that most of the peopled lived on their boats and these were covers that they put over them at night, or in inclement weather. It was a life I could barely envision. More amazing and unfamiliar sights and then we were pulling up on the far side of the river.

We each clamoured out of the boat and headed up the bank to the road. I couldn't decide which was worse, the stench from the fetid river water, or the myriad of stomach turning smells coming from the banks of the river, but looking up the bank to the road and seeing the whole scene wavering back and forth in the increasingly hot and humid liquid air I suspected there would be some great adventures today.

And that is where I will leave this tale for tonight, because it is too long and too exciting to manage all at once. Stay tuned for more tales from Dhaka in a day or so.