Streetfood and Intrusive Questions: One Last Day in Dhaka

I arrived back in Dhaka early one afternoon on the train. The platform was full of people running around. It may look like chaos but I’m used to it. I’m also used to locals, mostly men, grilling me with a ton of questions and it wasn’t long before an interested bystander struck up a conversation. He took the usual interrogative approach to small talk as favoured by men here:

Inquisitive man: Where is your husband, Madam?
Me: He’s at home.
Inquisitive man (looking seriously aghast): Only you? Alone? But Madam, it is not safe here. You must leave. Do you have a hotel reservation?
Me (lying, I have no reservation or plans at all): Yes, of course I do.
Inquisitive man: Which hotel are you staying at, Madam?
Me (pointing vaguely off into the distance): One over there.
Inquisitive man (urgently concerned): But which one precisely Madam? Which name? Which room number?
Me: I forget…

Besides uncovering the details of my travel plans and revealing that they are all ‘unsafe’, the main topic of interest in these conversations is ‘Do you have a husband Madam?’ followed closely by ‘Then where is he?’. Other popular questions include ‘Do you have children’ and the inevitable ‘Why not?’. ‘Which country?’ usually makes the list too but it’s a distant fifth behind the really good stuff, like family planning.

The inquisitive man’s concern for my safety didn’t worry me much, or at all. For starters it was broad daylight and the station was filled with fathers dragging luggage around and harassed-looking mothers unpacking picnic lunches. But I didn’t want his head to explode with worry, so I walked off in the direction I’d pretended my hotel was in and then flagged a rickshaw. Between me, the rickshaw driver, a few helpful pedestrians, and Maps.me I found a hotel pretty close by that seemed decent and I checked in.

I hadn’t given much thought to the food before coming to Bangladesh (strange, I know).

Early on, I’d seen some vague English translations on a menu: ‘Special Paratha’ and ‘Normal Paratha’. Paratha is just a flat bread but I wanted to know what the ‘special’ part was all about. I was pretty sure it was not special in the sense of ‘laced with cannabis’ like the special lassi (or pizza, or tea, or anything else) in South East Asia. Bangladesh is not a backpacker haunt. So I flagged down one of the many servers running frantically around and asked what was in the special paratha.

‘Madam, it is made from flour, salt, water…’ the server tapered off. ‘So what’s the normal one then?’ I moved on. ‘It is made from flour, salt, water…which country, Madam?’ came his reply. Over the course of about six meals at the same place I ordered both, and I never did figure out the difference.

Besides friendly little restaurants there is a lot of streetfood – like really, a lot. I love food and it rarely worries me. I will generally try just about anything that looks good, and cross my fingers (this attitude has led, admittedly, to some pretty memorable bouts of vomiting here and there). In most towns I’d noticed that while there are plenty of streetstalls serving food during the day, at night they seem to multiply and the streets are practically clogged with them and their customers.

On my last night in Dhaka, I trawled from stall to stall snacking for dinner.

‘Madam, this is not a safe area. Where is your husband?’ said a vendor as I lingered at his stand, eating puchka. The puchka was delicious and I’d heard this all before, so I calmly continued to eat.

Me: Which area is a safe area then?
Vendor (sorrowfully): No area. How many children, Madam?

As far as I was concerned, the scariest thing about the entire area was the weird parrot art on the wall in my room at the hotel, just up the street. Or maybe the shredded mystery greens on my plate of puchka. Tasty, but salad which may have been washed under the tap – at best – can be risky (in case you’re wondering, it turned out fine).

The unsafe area was filled with bakeries – a hallmark of dodgy areas for sure – and I ate some sweets as well.

Then I sat outside at a teastall and drank one last tea (in Bangladesh that is, and only for the moment. I was going to India after all).

But I won’t lie, I was madly looking forward to some Indian food. When I woke up the next morning I started envisioning a spicy, rich, buttery, mouth-watering curry and some jeera rice, maybe a good old garlic naan. After breakfast and one last conversation about my absent husband’s whereabouts, it was time to leave for India. I was due to meet my sister in Delhi, late that same night.

Hours and hours later, I stood outside Indira Ghandi Airport International Arrivals slurping a green juice and waiting for my little sister’s flight to arrive at 1 am. I was tired and hadn’t got my curry yet. But I didn’t care. Goof and I had cooked up this plan months ago and I’d been thinking about it ever since. All through my travels in Senegal, Liberia, Ivory Coast and then Bangladesh (yes – this has been quite the trip), I’d been looking forward to seeing her come through that gate.

The street was completely dark and silent when Goof and I arrived at our hotel in Pahar Ganj. It was muddy too; it had been raining. We sidled past a sleeping cow, down a little alley under a canopy of dangling electrical wires, and into the hotel. The receptionist was waiting for us – handing over a key and towels he wished us goodnight.

We climbed into bed and then, despite the late hour we drank the wine Goof had brought from a duty-free back in Europe somewhere. She was jetlagged and wide awake anyway; as for me, hey – Bangladesh is dry.

Needless to say we slept in – but not that late. Maybe it the was excitement of everything ahead of us or maybe it was knowing we had train tickets to book (dealing with India Rail is definitely a reason to start your day early). Maybe – probably – it was the promise of the meal I was craving. Whatever it was, I skipped breakfast and went straight to a plate of Kashmiri dum aloo, and it was exactly what I’d been waiting for.

Read More

Check out the rest of my stories from the road, for more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Bangladesh and India.