Getting around

 I’m giving up attempting to be poetic, clever or funny in this blog. Trying too hard just meant that I didn’t write anything. Sooo…….

I arrived two weeks ago into the worst air pollution I have ever experienced in my life. It turns out to be from the traffic (of course) and from brick dust coming from the brick factories that surround Dhaka. It’s visible and although only occasionally smell-able it certainly catches in the throat. The World Health Organisation estimates that at least 15,000 people die in Bangladesh each year because of air pollution. It should be worse, but the main form of transportation in Dhaka is non-motorised cycle rickshaw, of which there are at least 320,000!

Although not the poorest of the poor, rickshaw pullers are viewed as the bottom of society, living in the slums and taking home only around 100-120 thaka a day (less than £1). The rickshaws are colourful and fun to use for short journeys now I’ve got the hang of the tiny, sloping ‘seat’. I say fun but it’s tough to sit behind the backs of these extremely thin long-suffering pullers. I really don’t know how they keep up their stamina without proper food and not much water, but keep going they do. Karen and I have decided to use them as much as possible as our way of giving to the poor. As trips are only about 25-pence per rickshaw it is hard to resist giving more but there are arguments about not paying more than the price people normally pay as it ‘inflates’ the market and this “isn’t a good idea”. Not sure about that.

For longer journeys around the capital there is the CNG. It’s a three-wheeled taxi powered by Compressed Natural Gas (same as LPG?) in what looks like a 2-stroke lawn-mower motor. These were introduced in 2001 when it was realised just how much the old petrol-driven taxis were contributing to the air pollution problem.  There are tens of thousands CNGs on the streets in Dhaka. Although they are real bone-shakers and noisy to boot they are fairly reliable, whizzing around, in and out of the traffic, cutting up everything in sight.

The traffic itself is un-bloody-believable. Traffic lights and road markings have long since lost their meanings, if they ever had any. Five lanes of traffic crowd the roads marked out for three. No-one EVER looks in their mirrors. The CNG’s mirrors are directed inwards and used only to let the driver look back at their passengers. Lane discipline, ha ha ha. EVERYONE cuts everyone else up and the cars drive sooooo close to each other that I am constantly breathing in and holding my breath to try to will the CNG through the smallest space between an overcrowded bus battered to within an inch of its life and a big smart Toyota driven by a mobile-phone wielding young man or woman. All the while everyone is hooting, honking and bell-tinging. 

Photo of early morning at New Market, you can just see the green CNG in amongst the rickshaws. one hour later, this enormous, wonderful indoor and outdoor market was teeming with people. It was great.