Rural life

Rural life in BANGLADESH is extremely peaceful unless natural disasters happen. The Bay of Bengal is geographically prone to "attacks from the sea" as popularly called. Climate Change is making this process worse. ,According to today´s AFP news, at least 16 people were killed and more than 20,000 marooned as heavy rains over the past week triggered landslides and floods in southeast Bangladesh, the area that we visited last week.

Very close to the bangladeshi border, in India's north-eastern state of Assam, flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have washed away thousands of homes, killed at least 14 people, taking the reported death toll in the annual monsoon season to 79, and displaced more than 50,000 people, officials said on Sunday. (AFP/AP)

Bamboo and thunder

We enjoyed watching Bangladesh for hours. It was bamboo, lightening and thunder, rain and storm, ducks flying over rice fields, cocoanut palms and mangoes, together in a mad dervish dance. Waiting for the train, the crowd stayed under banyan trees. When it arrived, they eagerly scrambled in. During market days, some carried bundles of hay, some baskets, some sacks, going or coming from it in the silent noon. It was a stream of human activity at the rhythm of a Raga (a mode of classical music appropriate to the early dawn).

Our bags left behind in Dhaka, our clothes daily got more and more intolerable disreputable. Apart from this, we had a good time on the train. Our fellow passengers were of inexhaustible variety, a policeman, a lover of music and some families. We also carried a book and with a poet's songs in our lips, it was easier to float about the world on the crest of the rising tide. Bangladesh was subduing our hearts.

Bangladesh by train

There is no better way to see the country than by train. Bangladesh is southeast from Himalayas. While Tibetan Plateau is dry and lake-dotted, Bangladesh has dramatic lush vegetation; this is the profound influence of the Himalaya Mountains on the regional climate. South Bangladesh seen from Nasa World Wind, looks like brownish sediment is pouring out of the Mouths of the Ganges into the Bay of Bengal. This large delta is formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.