On the outskirts of the city, the deluxe Rambagh Palace is one of the few palace hotels of international standards. As in most Rajasthan hotels, doormen are dressed like Rajput dandies, cultivating immense, curved mustaches, and wearing brilliant turbans, some with flowing tails flapping down the back.
The sprawling palace is a peaceful retreat of long, shady corridors, arched passageways, latticed screens, delicate cupolas and fountains. In the courtyard outside, snake charmers lure cobras out of their baskets and mahouts pose with their painted elephants for photographs.
Lunch is a delicious biriani -- sweet basmati rice with pieces of lamb and cashew nuts flavored with saffron and mint and served with raita (yogurt with grated cucumbers and spices). Musicians in turbans and dhotis sitting cross-legged at the end of the room playing the taula (drum) and the tanpura (a long-handled kind of sitar) provide the appropriate subcontinent background music.
Samode - The Far Pavilions
Some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Jaipur, Samode Palace sits majestically above a seedy village. Massive doors, high as a house and bristling with great metal studs to deter fighting elephants, swing open to let the Ambassador pass. Four-hundred-year-old Samode, a blend of Rajput and Mughal styles of architecture, is one of the most ornate, and best known, of Rajasthan’s palace hotels.
From the parking lot (a few shade trees), a series of steps lead up to ascending courtyards of the multilevel palace. Bare stone stairwells and hallways lead to frescoed walls and audience halls, such as the twinkling Hall of Mirrors.
The ornate Durbar Hall (maharaja’s court), patterned like an Oriental carpet from wall to ceiling, was the main setting for the British television production of author M. M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions. The maharajahs and maharanis must have abhorred the unadorned; every square inch of my room seems covered with some pattern or picture, from flowers and geometric shapes to battle or hunting scenes with warriors, fighting elephants and tigers in the forest.
During the day, guests can ride a camel three miles through villages and dusty desert roads to the hotel’s Samode Bagh Mughal garden, to use the swimming pool and lawn tennis court. Or they can walk through the adjoining village, viewing the ancient wall paintings on merchants’ homes and experiencing Indian peasant life in the raw. Outside the palace gate, two village boys, claiming to come from a long line of artists, display distinctive Rajasthan-style miniatures -- traditional paintings including slightly risque works featuring generously proportioned village girls in see-through blouses.
Next to the palace, a steep staircase of 376 steps leads up the slope to the 400-year-old ruins of one of three hilltop forts protecting Samode. At the top, a watchman unlocks a heavy door and I have the huge, well-constructed fort to myself.
Although in ruins, the basic structure is in good shape. It is a classic stone fort with parapets, loopholes, turrets, bastions and battlements. The watchman points out machicolations, holes in the floor over the outside walls, that were the soldiers’ toilets.
It is peaceful up here, alone. The braying of a camel far below and the distant chattering of pilgrims walking along a path disappearing over the dry hills.
Castle Mandawa
Beyond Jaipur, the countryside, and the castles, become harsher, less genteel, but even more colorful. Sword-bearing guards with fearsome beards welcome travelers to Castle Mandawa, where two venerable cannons on large spoked wheels stand guard at the massive, spiked gate.
Much of the rambling, 240-year-old castle is still unrestored, with peeling walls, unpainted hallways and building materials piled in the corners. The rooms, though, are large and lavish. Mine is like a harem, lacking only the female companionship, with ornate white marble arches, delicately carved woodwork, little alcoves and a maharajah-sized bed.
The Rajputs have a great sense of showmanship and pageantry. Caparisoned camels and horses carry tour groups into the main courtyard as the musicians blow horns and drums roll the “Royal Welcome.” In season, traditional Rajasthani artists give lively song and dance performances by candlelight, dazzling displays harking back to ancient days.
Another Roadside Detraction
Peacock cries are the wake-up call at Mandawa, summoning me to a fried eggs-toast-and-coffee breakfast. Heading back to Delhi, Suress takes a shortcut down side roads. These quickly degenerate to mere sand trails through the scrub and desert, where the only other traffic consists of camels pulling two-wheeled carts with huge rubber tires, piled high with firewood.
In this heat, Suress stops frequently at mud huts with wells outside to top up the hissing radiator. Finally, the diesel engine overheats and stops. I sit on a kilometer stone by the side of the road reading The Times of India while the driver walks back a village for a bucket of water. It is just another roadside detraction.
Driving through rural Rajasthan is like being thrust into Satyajit Ray’s classic Pather Panchali movie of village India. Then, suddenly, we are back on the main highway to Delhi, and 20th-century traffic. Back at my hotel, as I arrive hot and dusty, the towering doorman snaps to attention and salutes.
“I trust you have had a commendable journey, sir.”
BANGLADESH
DHAKA
Dhaka Days, Dhaka Nights
November 1994
THE sign “Flesh Pots” outside downtown Dhaka’s Metropolitan Hotel was intriguing, especially in conservative Bangladesh. Curious, I walked up the dingy stairs to the second floor. Inside the door, the receptionist at the cash register whispered “Vegetable soup?” Despite the suggestive name, Flesh Pots is merely a restaurant serving such fare as “Chinese and American chop suey.” The vegetable soup was on special.
Like the restaurant, the Bangladesh capital is an anomaly, an ancient city where some 200,000 bicycle rickshaws still ply the streets, but hotels have satellite communications and broadcast international TV news. Bangladesh evokes images of a hapless land of overwhelming masses, typhoon ravaged coasts, endless expanses of flooded fields and inundated villages, droughts and disasters.
The capital, set on the flat, fertile delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, is not the most beloved of Asian capitals, for tourists, business travelers or, apparently, flight crews.
The crew on my flight from Hong Kong was gathered in the galley at the back of the darkened Airbus when I went back to recharge my Champagne flute. Did they have to stay on and work the return flight to Hong Kong? I asked.
Yes, they did.
“That must be tough?” I sympathized.
“Well, its better than staying in Dhaka,” replied a stylish miss applying crimson polish to delicate fingernails. Her companions nodded earnest assent.
My first impression is hardly favorable. The sly usurers at the airport banks are widely known to cheat unwary visitors, giving as much as 25 percent less than the official exchange rate. Stung visitors question whether it is the official bank policy, or if the employees simply pocket the difference.
The hustling extends to Dhaka taxis, which have no meters, so bargaining is essential. Drivers ask up to five times the price from foreigners for the ride from the airport to the city, but will usually settle for much less. Three-wheel motorcycle-rickshaws, like Thai tuk-tuks, here called scooters or baby taxis, are more commonplace. With these, too, visitors pay up to 50 percent more than locals. Bicycle rickshaws are practical only for short distances, or a nostalgic ride, evoking an experience of old Asia, not so long ago.
The country, and its capital, has definite, although sometimes elusive, attractions. Founded in the 10th century, this was the Mogul capital of Bengal (1608-1704) and a trading center for the British, French and Dutch before coming under British rule in 1765. Even the name is not what it was. Dacca, the Romanized spelling of the Bengali name, became Dhaka in 1982.
In its dated urban appearance, and its preponderance of non-motorized traffic, Dhaka is reminiscent of a more leisurely era, like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur of a few decades ago. Two-, three- and four-wheel traffic --
bicycles, pedicabs and motor rickshaws, farm trucks and battered taxis -- clog the main streets such as North-South Road (formerly a canal). Even in the city center, crude, hand-drawn carts piled high with coconuts and produce, as well as rustics returning to the farm carrying huge woven vegetable baskets, slow the traffic flow.
Bangladesh’s colonial past prevails in the sing-song English, and a few architectural remnants such as the High Court and Curzon Hall, a rose-hued Victorian-Mogul building that now houses the Dhaka University science faculty. Six local English-language newspapers (Observer, Times, Morning News, Daily Star, Telegraph, New Nation) as well as international publications bring the news to this poor country.
The capital of the world’s most crowded nation does have peaceful, attractive areas, such as broad Crescent Boulevard lined with brilliant flame trees. A symbol of modern Bangladesh, the modernistic, angular concrete Jatiya Sangsas Bhaban (parliament building) looks as though it is floating on a lake. Its American architect, Louis I. Kahn, who thought it a modern version of the Taj Mahal, designed it so that every room is exposed to light and cool breezes. When the electricity goes (as it does here), the building functions without lights or air-conditioning.
This low-rise city’s soft, muddy base, and a lack of investment funds have restricted the construction of skyscrapers. Most banks, airlines and commercial offices are in Motijheel (both the street and the district), the heart of Dhaka’s business life. But this is no Manhattan of Bengal; the 34-story State Bank Building is the country’s tallest.
Numerous mosques and historic buildings set against the city’s more contemporary structures reflect the country’s ancient Muslim heritage. But the Bangladeshis fuse faith and commerce in their own, distinct way. Yet another symbol of modern Dhaka -- and another paradox -- is the giant Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, resembling a mammoth sugar cube just like the Kaaba in Mecca. While the faithful pray in the main hall, shopkeepers in the thriving basement electronic bazaar hawk TVs, VCRS, satellite dishes, batteries and coaxial cables.
East meets West most curiously in the 18th-century Ahsan Manzil, formerly home of the nawabs (rulers) of Dhaka. The imposing pink riverside palace is now a museum. Inside, a row of portraits of ancient patriarchs in various configurations of beard gaze sternly down from the walls. Despite their archaic appearance, these men embraced modernism and endeavored to live like Victorian gentlemen.
Twenty-three galleries in 31 rooms display their life in the British colony, where they introduced such foreign innovations as plumbing and electricity to Bangladesh. In one room, a long dining table is set with crystal glasses and silverware. Other displays include a billiard room, the nawab’s library, a bedroom with a four-poster bed and a drawing room with brothel-red velveteen walls.
When the national tourist organization, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, refers to this as “A land of hidden charm,” it is being modest. There is more to East Bengal than the Lancers and tigers, although the big striped cats still prowl the vast Sundarbans (beautiful forest) west of Dhaka. Deer, monkey, wild bear and hyena are more common, however. Terraced tea plantations spread over the scenic hills at Sylhet north of Dhaka, while to the south at Cox’s Bazar the world’s longest beach stretches for 120 kilometers along the Bay of Bengal.
Social customs are similar to those throughout Asia. Businessmen may bring their wives for dinner “If they think they are presentable enough, in looks and education,” explains one sari-clad executive. “Otherwise they might bring a secretary. People do want to be seen with a pretty girl,” she adds.
In this predominantly Muslim country, alcohol is legal, and readily available to visitors, although some conservative (orthodox) locals may object to it. Pork is also proscribed, and although the ubiquitous Chinese restaurants serve it, getting a standard bacon-and-eggs breakfast is a problem.
“Bangladesh is Muslim, but not fundamentalist,” a local businessman explains over morning tea. “You see Europeans in miniskirts, and local women do not wear veils. At least, very few of them.”
As a Muslim country, Bangladesh has different days off. “On Thursday, we get Saturday Night Fever,” the lady explains as she prepares to leave the office early. Many companies have a half day off Thursday, while banks, offices and government departments are closed Friday, the Muslim day of rest, when no alcoholic drinks are served. Multinationals and embassies are closed Saturdays as well, and everything is open on Sunday.
Thursday Night Fever is tamer than its Western counterpart. It is hard to boogie in Dhaka, a city of 1,000 mosques and about 20 bars, but no nightclubs. Locals socialize at private clubs, a legacy of the Raj, expatriates at diplomatic clubs. Entertaining is usually done in restaurants or in private homes, with cocktail parties and dinners.
Postprandial prancing and dancing is restricted in this conservative country. At the large, dark Sonargaon Hotel Khayyam Club, the city’s only disco, a DJ plays neo-reggae while a few customers sit at the tables, eyeing the empty little dance floor.
The Bar off the Sheraton Hotel’s lobby is pleasant, subdued, like a dimly lit private club, with high teak ceilings, large mirrors behind the bar and potted ferns. An innocuous house drink, the Dhaka Duck (orange, pineapple and lemon juice, Grenadine syrup and angostura bitters mixed with fresh cream), exemplifies Bengali nightlife.
But the bartender tells me Dhaka has more than 20 bars. Of all his suggestions, the Red Bottom Bar sounds most promising. Address in hand, I hail a “baby taxi” in pursuit of nocturnal adventures. But 10 minutes later, buzzing down a busy main street, I spot it: The Red Button Restaurant.
Dhaka has fooled me again.
COX’S BAZAR
Dunes to dusk
Fall 2001
THE exotic name Cox’s Bazar has enticed me since I first heard it as a schoolboy long ago. Besotted by faraway places with strange-sounding names, studying maps of exotic climes, I made a mental note that I must visit it someday.
The name, and the brochure photograph of an elephant standing on the beach with head held high, a great orange setting sun perfectly framed in the curve of its trunk, attracted me to the town on the Bay of Bengal. Promoted as the “Tourist Capital of Bangladesh” with its miles of golden sands, Buddhist temples and excellent seafood, it sounds intriguing.
So I travel south from Dhaka, to see the sun set on the world’s longest unbroken sandy beach, which stretches 120 kilometers, all the way from Cox’s Bazar south to Burma.
To see something of rural Bangladesh, I travel overland by train and bus instead of flying. The arduous day-long journey is not for the faint of heart, with beggars pouncing on every passing foreigner, and villages with garbage and vegetation strewn in festering piles on the street - interspersed with bucolic rural scenes. Travelers concerned with comfort for body and spirit should fly.
Arriving in Cox’s, tired and dusty after the long journey, I ride a pedicab to my seaside hotel, the Shaibal. Eager to sample the area’s vaunted seafood, I immediately set off into town in search of a restaurant, and soon find a small place rich with local color. I am about to order a fish dopiaza (onions twice curry) when I spot the waiter combing his hair with a fork, then putting it back on the table.
The hotel restaurant will have to do, I decide, and scuttle back to the big, empty place I had originally spurned. In fact, it is a delightful surprise. The pomfret masala is delicious, as tasty as anything I have had in five-star restaurants. The whole fish, large enough to cover the plate, along with rice, vegetables and tea, comes to just a few dollars. So the brochures are right about the superb seafood.
The next morning at dawn, Inani Beach is already active. Children swim in the clear Bay of Bengal water; women in saris stroll the beach; and fishermen are out with nets at the end of long poles, pushing them like wheelbarrows, collecting tiny fish in big aluminum pots. A sign on the beach lists charges for showers, inflatable inner tubes and “kit kots,” which I take to mean inflatable mattresses.
Over breakfast, I overhear a loc
al refer to the many “anjos” (NGOs) in Cox’s Bazar, and aside from tourism, foreign aid seems to be the main industry. Strolling the streets of the dusty, ramshackle but pleasant town, I spot numerous international relief organization offices. In a few short blocks, there is the Control of Communicable Diseases, Bangladesh. the Community Based Calamity Preparedness and Rehabilitation Program, the Cyclone Preparedness Program and others.
Sightseeing proves a challenge, even in such a small town. I commission a pedicab to take me to the largest bronze statue of the Buddha in Bangladesh, and climb aboard for the bumpy ride through the baking streets. Although it is the town’s most famous sight, the driver drops me off far past it and wheels away before I know what has happened. But at least I am in Ramu, a Buddhist village about 10 kilometers from Cox’s Bazar. After asking directions from several shopkeepers, I walk back down the road and along a deserted side street.
Finally, I come upon a collection of strange, rundown buildings, with worn teak floors and multitiered corrugated iron roofs housing Buddha statues from Burma. An old priest and I are the only ones there, and it is peaceful in the jungle setting. But it isn’t the big Buddha.
Back on the main road, I find a more informed pedicab driver, who takes me further out of town and down a jungle path with paved strips for the pedicab wheels and brick in between. This leads to a complex of 19th-century khyangs, or monasteries, timber-framed, with multilevel pitched roofs and decorative fretted carvings in a sort of Indo-Chinese Carpenters’ Gothic style.
The temple guardian, a stooped and frail woman who the driver swears is 110-years-old, silently appears, hand outstretched. Despite her three-figure age, her eyes are sharp enough to assess the bill I give her before she opens the temples for me. Inside, she indicates the big Buddha, and disappears like a wraith.
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