$56 million is a lot of money, unless you are a Saudi prince or a US arms manufacturer but, in a country as poor as Bangladesh, it’s a shit load of cash which could be spent on no end of worthy projects to help those suffering from poverty. But rich film-maker Ahsanullah Moni had a better idea to help the poor, he would build them a replica of the Taj Mahal. No doubt the masses were dancing in the streets…
The pair of young men gunned the throttles of their bright, scarlet motorbikes as they hurtled past me over the damp, beach sand. Cool kids in black and shades. Their girlfriends behind, clinging tightly, their black burqas streaming with a wild flutter in their wake. Back they raced to the throng of well to do families, having found the kind of seclusion at the far end of the beach that young couples seek everywhere, away from protective families. Just north of…
A shocking anomaly in the art world surely has to be the tragically overlooked form of the hay stack, where euro-centric critics have dismissed it as an agricultural craft discipline, devoid of true creative flair. If they only left their ivory towers long enough to travel to Bangladesh or eastern India they would surely realise the error in their ways and recognise that Bengali culture has devoted centuries to the perfection of hay stack construction as a higher art form….
Just what are the fickle demands of tourists that relegate Bangladesh to the bottom of the tourist league in South Asia? People tend to respond to negative news but the country’s media profile has sunk into such a quiet backwater, that even the bad news, so demanded of media outlets, has been left on the international news margins, unlike India, Myanmar and Thailand, with the inherent risk to tourist numbers. In fact it’s never had enough of a profile to…
I woke to the sound of roar, a roar without end. What was it? A protest? A soccer match? Having arrived in the early hours, when all was quiet in central Dhaka at the edge of the old city, I had only one option: to get out and explore. Besides, not being a botanist the lure of staying in and studying the abundant insect life crawling around my room didn’t seem quite so appealing. I soon located the source of…
Just as you would imagine, your typical Myanmar Buddhist temple is a haven of serenity. Even the occasional clang of a sacred bell that adherents make only adds to the atmosphere of calm reverence as the chime’s reverberations pulse gradually into silence. The waft of incense is a gentle call to respect the site’s tranquility under the watchful eye of a golden Buddha. This is the kind of face of Buddha that most of us would think of in imagining…
If the pub can be said to be at the heart of British social life, the same can be said of the tea house in Myanmar. Both may have a male focus but the tea house has none of the drunken bravado of its counterpart, as Buddhism tends to frown upon a lack of sobriety. Sweet, milky tea is dispensed to the masses from the early morning, usually to some time in the afternoon. It is where tales are told,…
From the serenity of dusty village tracks to the fumes and klaxons of hectic Yangon streets you never have to go far to find a little shelter of spirituality: a nat shrine. Nats are spirits, whose worship predates the arrival of Buddhism and has endured, despite the occasional efforts by the powers that be to quash its practice. In fact it was the 11th century king Anawrahta’s efforts to do so that only served to alienate people from his…
On the road to Mandalay The latest stage in my totally pointless quest to act out the lyrics at the locations in Ian Dury’s, Hit me with your rhythm stick. See Part 1 if you have no idea what I am talking about or care enough to find out. The town of Hsipaw, in the north-east of Myanmar seemed a good a place as any to represent the lyric as the main road through its centre led directly to Mandalay,…
You might have thought that when deciding on where to locate your new capital city you would consult someone with some kind of geographical background but not General Than Shwe, dictator in chief of Myanmar. Back around 2005 the first person he went to was his astrologer, as he had for many important decisions, except for when to torture people as every day was an auspicious occasion for inflicting suffering on the people. As luck would have it, the astrologer…
