i must have eaten something that did not agree with my digestive system, i had images of my stomach and intestines in war with substances they did not recognise, my kidneys screaming out 'I'm an organ get me out of here' well that's how it felt for me, but i was determined to not let it affect my day.

as usual the day began early after breakfast, we where headed towards a palace.

the white palace, which was now a museum

and inside i befriended a little girl who was a minute version of little girls, this girl was tiny, really tiny, and she could run fast in a freaky sort of way because she looked like she shouldn't be crawling never mind running, cute...
when we finished touring the museum we headed back to the mini bus to find 4 little boys standing nearby:
there story is so sad, they all work at a soap factory, there little bodies where full of burn scars from working at the factory, acid burns!!!!

and they have to work otherwise they get beats, some body asked them about school and they replied that how could they possibly afford to go to school, its really sad but its common to see children in such situations, i would say that these children may even still be better of than some other children, and although they are wearing rags, some of the children i saw didn't have a single item of clothing on them for the sheer fact that they cant afford clothes.

and even still they managed to smile at us, we really don't realise how lucky we are.

so we continued our drive and stopped to by some coconut, fresh coconut, which they chop of the top and put a straw inside so you can drink the liquid, i didn't really enjoy it that much because the coconut milk was warm, when i had finished they chop it up so that you can eat the inside, i was expecting hard coconut like the type you get here, the chocolate bounty stuff, instead i was given a slimy substance, but i was game for trying it out:

i was good and finished it all but to be honest i much prefer the hard coconut which is how it becomes when you leave it, the slimy stuff just reminded me of other stuff but i wont mention what :)

later i was given the proper stuff which brought a huge smile to my face, a lady kindly prepared it for me:

and the final result is a plate full of coconut all for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee:
we where heading towards a temple, and on the way there we stopped at a lake, where every one dipped there feet to cool down:

ketchup always grabbed the opportunity to dip her feet:

another tree:

we arrived at the kantaji temple in dinazapur, when we got there we found a welcoming committee waiting for us, and the moment we got of the mini bus they started to sing and dance:

it was so much fun, and they just kept singing and dancing for like an hour in the heat of the sun, later i stood with them and clapped, not understanding a single word, just smiling, nodding and trying to look like i knew what i was doing.

we weren't allowed to enter the temple so we walked around it taking pictures, they really where proud of it and have taken good care of it:

i spotted a camel amongst the detailed tiles, i love camels:
there where quite a few ceramic plates leaning against a wall, apparently for offerings to the temple:

before leaving there was time for one more danceon the way out, i spotted my role model, a boy who had climbed a mango tree and wa picking mangoes, he was climbing that tree as if his legs where made of branches, maaaaaaaaaaan i want to learn how to climb like that:
on the way back to the hotel i noticed jack fruit being sold, just look at how big they are:

sleep was on my mind, funnily enough through out the whole trip i would just have to put my head on the pillow and sleep would over take me, something that rarely happens in Manchester.

bright and early it was, stepping out the hotel the heat hits you instantly, i never really got used to it, every so often i would day dream of inventing an internal air conditioning system for the human body, that was efficient, cheap and had no side affects like drying out the lungs or bursting the heart or shrivelling the brain to a size of a peanut.

i had plenty time for such ideas as we travelled sooooo much.

we had to leave so early in the morning so as to make use of as much time as possible, we had about a 4 hour drive ahead of us to an area called bhogra.

half way there we stopped for breakfast at a restaurant that used to be owned by Japanese residents, i snapped up some pictures of the garden:

after breakfast and my dose of caffeine, we started the journey again and a couple of hours later arrived at the hotel:

multi coloured hotel, we freshened up, prayed and back to the mini bus to visit an old archeological site, (lady wildkat help me out sis i have completely forgotten the name of the place we went to).

it was really hot, the sun was out and every thing looked so green and lush: i love this picture of the palm tree with the random guy actually i took alot of photos of trees, which you all know i love and adore:

whilst walking around i noticed 3 men ploughing a field and planting seeds, one thing i have to say about Bengali's is that they are extremely hard working, from the early hours of the morning till the late hours of the night they are on there feet, obviously apart from the fat cats of the country who are the exception:

i spotted a lady who had scythe in her hand and she was leaning against a palm tree, i stood there for ages trying to take a picture of her with the scythe in her hand but each time the photo came up without it in her hand so i gave up in the end and decided to concentrate on just taking a photo of her:
just opposite the mini bus was a stream and not far off was a man using a water pump, i found them so fascinating, and it looks so cool, when i went to the beach i tried to wash my feet and hands using the water pump but for some reason couldn't muster enough strengh to bring up the water, seriously they have alot of strengh in those muscles:
back at the hotel i managed to snap a picture of a pomegranate tree (ruman) which i simply love, especially served with a little rose water and sugar, mmmm delicious:
and the drive to the next site we spotted a banana field and we so had to stop and take pictures, i was in my element, bananas bananas bananas bananas galore, all those years of calling people bananas, and i white african was at last surrounded by bananas simply brilliant.

all the excitements must have gone to my head because the next thing i know I've fallen flat down lol, right in front of an audience,

oh well these things have to happen, luckily it was very soft soil, actually more muddy than soil so all i ended up having was mud all over me, buts its all good, worth it just to be surrounded by bananas :)

i was very good and didn't pick any and put them in my pocket, now that would be considered stealing, we cant have that happening now can we.

actually there not very big and not sweet more starchy when eaten straight away but when left for some time then it does get sweet, actually when i was there i did taste fried bananas which where simply delicious surprisingly.

i had to pose next to a bunch of bananas, how could i possibly not (no monkey jokes please :).

before getting onto the mini bus i spotted a goat herder, some people just have such picturesque faces, i couldn't help but capture the memory:

we drove to pharapur to visit the largest known monastery in the south of the himalaya which wa built in the 7th century, the place was huge, and it looked like a mountain:
we had 2 little boys following us through out it all, i guess they where either inquisitive as to who we where or they wanted something, so i took a photo of them: notice how there holding hands aaaaaaaaaw, it's very much the norm for the boys over there and the men to hold each others hands, i guess there much more affectionate in there friendship.

i looked across the horizon and noticed how big and clear the clouds where:
and opposite where i wa standing i noticed a man bent down, when i aske dthe tour guide what he was doing, he told me that the man was cutting the grass using a scythe and his hands, can you imagne 10 hectres of land being mowed using bare hands, unbelievable:
so after watching the man cutting grass, and after running after goats we headed back to the hotel, at this point i was beggining to experince stomach cramps and prayed to god that i would have a good nights sleep on my bed and not on the toilet.

oh the joys of going back to work, after working today you wouldn't think i was away for 3 weeks!!!

a law should be put in place, called the 'holiday after a holiday' law, that all jobs must abide by, you see if i ruled the country then that would be one of the many things i would introduce :)

any way i do thank Allah for having Sunday at least to rest and generally find my head which by the way i found eventually, well half of my head at least.

ok so Bangladesh, wow mashallah what an experience, i absolutely loved it and it was def an eye opener and i managed to pick up some of the language as well (well some are swear words, how is it that the easiest words are always the bad ones? tut tut tut).

well after the adventure of seeing a random naked lady in the middle of the street (safia i have no idea why she was there and no one seemed to care either, bystanders acting like they where watching paint dry lol, my friend did contemplate going down to cover her with a scarf or something), we got back to the hotel which was thankfully air conditioned, i think if it wasn't then i would have slept in the shower. we didn't do anything that night which was for the best really because we where so tired and out of it, we barley ate something before falling into bed to go to dream land.

next day woke up around 8ish having had a good nights sleep, well i did anyway, and it was time for breakfast, now i wasn't relying on Bengali coffee being the best of coffee so i had brought my own, all they needed to do was supply hot water and presto that's my breakfast done, but i was expected to eat something at least, well breakfast in Bangladesh consists of roti or parata (similar to chapatis or for Libyans 'iftat') with sabzi (mixed cooked vegetables) and occasionally curry, i kinda invented my own style of breakfast that consisted of the roti with honey, curry is a bit to heavy for me in the morning, the best thing though is the fruit, mango and pineapple fresh for breakfast is out of this world.

our tour guide had sent his driver to pick us up to take us to his office to discuss the coming tour, which was split into two parts archaeological tour and another tour.

so after getting to know the team and looking at the programme and answering all of our questions it was time to have a tour of Dhaka and lunch.

the first stop was round the corner an old mosque which had an open courtyard which they only use twice a year for the eid prayers, and a raja used to ride his elephant all the way to this mosque every eid to pray.

actually alot of the mosques have this big open square especially for eid.

round the corner was a jack fruit tree, now i have never seen such a fruit, and it does look weird, my friend says its the best fruit ever, and that she can never have enough of it, so i was game for trying it out, fruit couldn't possibly be disgusting now could it? i didn't try it out straight away as there wasn't an opportunity but a few days later the opportunity came, i was sat in a superintendents house (he kindly invited us over for tea) when i was offered to try out jack fruit, so i put a morsel in my mouth and smiled being aware that all eyes where on me, all i kept doing was smiling, nodding and not being able to swallow, wallahi i have never tasted anything like it, it was slimy and tasted fermented, i managed to swallow the piece in my mouth and placed the rest on the table which my friend kindly finished of for me.

i jokingly told them that you could probably get drunk of jack fruit what with it being fermented, maaaaan it was jack fruit season so every time we visit people they would insist on feeding us jack fruit, which i never went anywhere near.

before going back onto the mini bus we bought some street food which one of the girls became famous for as she has cravings for street food, lets just say that she experienced some toilet problems hee hee hee.

this type of street food is called moori which is popped rice mixed with spices and chilli's, pretty tasty.

i fell in love with a samosa style thing called shingara which is absolutely delicious, but its considered street food so eating to many will mean a night in the toilet for sure, and one thing you don't want is to have to keep going to the toilet which most are hole in the floor, so the less toilet time the better and some of the toilets where untouchable, it's actually better to take a spade and dig your own hole :)

next stop was to a paan shopPaan is basically a leaf from a creeper called the Paan creepers. There are different types of Paan creepers. These different types of Paan leaves are made into many different varieties of Paan by adding various different ingredients and then folding into triangular shaped bidas, the shop we went to sold sweet paan, most Bengali's eat paan regularly, many of them eat it with betlenut, tobacco and limestone paste, and is very addictive and causes serious damage to teeth, making them black and the acid in the lime paste eats away at the teeth.

when Paan is chewed, a red food dye inside it makes the mouth red, loads of people do not swallow much of Paan, thus resulting in pool of red liquid (due to red dye and saliva) which they spit out (the red liquid) rather than swallowing it.

its prepared into little triangular parcels, and eaten whole, i only tried it the once, obviously without the tobacco and lime paste, very weird taste, i guess its an acquired taste, i never really got over the smell of the pan leaf, its very over powering and made me feel nausea's.

opposite the paan shop was a sweet shop that generally sold matti (asian sweets) but the reason why the tour guide took us there was to taste a particular sweet by the name of shondesh which he found hilarious as my name is sondes and through out the duration of the trip i was continuously called shondesh, great!!!! oh well at least it means sweet and not something embarrassing.

we where taken to a lake where we walked around it enjoying the scenery, we called it lovers lake due to the fact that every step we took would be couples sat down, gazing either into each others eyes or looking away bashfully loooool.
the lake had a huge mansion looking down at it, this mansion is called the illegal mansion by the locals as it was built illegally on land that does not belong to them,

i think the name of the house is called the 'lake house' but i much prefer the 'illegal house', actually it's a common thing for land to be taken over and built upon, day light robbery!!!!

its only recently that change is occurring where most of the previous government have been arrested and a temporary government is now in place and they are trying to reduce the number of corruption and we did see many building being demolished as they don't have the right to exist for being built on other peoples land.

also major investigations are being done, and whilst we were there we kept hearing of more and more arrests, and apparently the country has never had it so good, hopefully its a start of more good things to come.

they should investigate the illegal house which by the way is built in the shape of a boat:

sadly just opposite this house where shanty houses, the rich and poor divide is very obvious and very much in peoples faces
a walk away was an old mosque called Saat Gumbad (meaning the 7 domed mosque) built in the time of the mughal rule that used to be red but now is white interestingly, its smack in the middle of a shanty town and its still used for prayers, opposite it is madrasah.


the wudu area is sooo cool, its like little slabs of concrete to sit on and a pond to make wudu from:
sadly most mosques do not have a ladies section as they believe that woman should pray at home, but at least they allowed us to walk around and take pictures.

back to the mini bus it was, whenever we stop due to traffic, we get bombarded by either beggars or street sellers, this guy was selling 'teach yourself English' books in picture form, it took a while for him to realise that we where not going to buy from him:

through out my stay in Bangladesh i took snap shots of beggars and street sellers, which they loved and would always pose for bless.

we where taken to the house of Parliament area which looks over a lake well more like opposite the lake and across the bridge was a memorial centre with a tomb in the middle.

Arabic calligraphy surrounding it. and just waiting for us outside was another street seller this one selling peanuts which by the way are very addictive once you start eating them:

afterwards off to eat biryani (rice mixed with meat) which i didn't realise was goats meat until a few days later so that was a first for me.

then back to the hotel, the next day was to be the start of the archaeological tour and we had to leave at 6 in the morning, aaaaaaaah waking up so early is a killer for me.

will blog more another time.....

well I'm back in sunny Manchester, i feel like some one has taken my head and hid it in some dark room, i swear I'm feeling so tired and light headed and the journey back felt like it was never going to end.

but alhamdullilah i arrived yesterday at Manchester airport and you know what the best feeling was? the fact that as soon as i stepped outside i didn't feel any humidity, my clothes didn't feel wet and i wasn't sweating from my nose wooohoooo, i love Manchester weather :)

the trip was great, a most definite trip of a life time and i was well impressed by Bangladesh.

i will blog about the trip soon with pictures attached, I'm just trying to find where i last placed my head aaaaaaah.

its 11:15 pm Bangladesh time, I'm sat in the lobby of a hotel in an area called Chittagong (i have no idea how to spell it).

i last blogged about how extremely tired i was after what seemed like an eternity of travelling, what i forgot to mention was my first experience of Bangladesh on the streets, so picture this, I'm sat at the back of the mini bus, literally stuck to the window, wanting to absorb every sight my eye saw, constantly gasping in delight of the many wonders of things, when right ahead was a whole traffic of cars which is nothing abnormal really, but what was causing the traffic was an older naked lady standing smack in the middle of the road preventing cars from passing loool.

the funny thing was the tour guide and the driver where acting like nothing was happening, i on the other hand had my hand stuffed in my mouth trying not to laugh, and even then couldn't help myself splutter and gasp all the while my friend pinching me due to the fact she was embarrassed.

i can safely say that it is not an every day occurrence to see that sort of thing in Bangladesh, my friend pointed out that the only reason this happened was because i was travelling with them and wherever i seem to be, then weird things tend to happen!!!

well what could i say :)

what a welcome, that night there was certainly a full moon in Bangladesh looool.

so im sat here getting annoyed with how slow this connection is, its been over an hour of trying to connect to blogger, but i achieved it eventually so a round of applause for meeeeeee :)

the trip began from manchester airport, it took 8 hours to get to dubai, but it went pretty fast, i watched 2 films that i meant to watch, premonition with sandra bullock and in pursuit of happiness with will smith, food wasnt bad either.

we landed in dubai around 11:30pm uk time,, and headed straight to transit where it wasnt a long wait thankfully, the flight from dubai to dhaka tha capital took around 5 hours, and during all this time i didnt sleep a wink, i cant sleep whenn travelling, so i ended up watching more films and getting annoyed with a seriously annoying man who was sat next to me.

we landed in dhaka airport around 4:40am uk time which is 09:40am bangladesh time, took ourselves to the luggage collection, grabbed oour many bags and headed to the mini bus waiting for us.

as soon as i stepped out of the airport the heat and humidity hit me, wow, seriously the country is hot, and instantly everything feels damp.

i reached the hotel and ran straight to the bed and walahi as soon as i hit the pillow i fell asleep and did not move until 3 hours later, i was sooooo tired.

i gotta go now so i will try to blog some more later inshallah.