Exciting times

I’ll never forget the day that I boarded the Rocket in Barisal, Bangladesh.

My friend Clementine and I were venturing back to Dhaka after exploring the mangroves of south east Bangladesh. Booking had remained a foreign concept to us until now. Modes of transport have no maximum capacity in Bangladesh. Amidst loving goodbyes with our self-proclaimed student hosts in Barisal, our transport docks. She sits low in the water, her rusty exterior resembling a shanty town. We single file into a carpet of humanity centred around an open plan antique steam engine. Men swing idly over the side of the boat. Removed from the daily chaos, they hover over muddy waters in sari turned hammock-slings, smoking and spitting red paan.

Boarders behind push as we search for foot space between chickens and grandmothers. There is not enough floor space for those already on board, and yet inwards we are carried. Smiles, pinches and curious stares drive us onwards as we fish for a square metre to curl up for the night. A little man in a suit spots our blank entertained faces and pulls on my arm. We are hurriedly escorted through the crowds and upstairs where we are informed of the apparent no-show of a first class cabin reservation. We agree tentatively to the proposed lodgings despite budget considerations as we eye the swelling ranks below.

Through a guarded hole in the rust one leaves the overwhelming present for a white washed past. Pressed sheets and English newspapers adorn twin beds and we are beckoned to freshly brewed Assam tea on the First Class balcony. We cruise into the dusk, up the sea of a river littered with cargo canoes towards the Dhaka metropolis. We make small talk with our elderly caretaker Shamsul, official concierge to First Class since the 1971 War of Independence, and make our way to dinner. We sit at a table for twenty and set for two. Our dinner is fish and chips with a side of peas, overcooked to perfection in exquisite English culinary fashion.

We eat, we retire for the evening to our chambers, uncomfortable in the colonial era guise that decorates the air, the walls and ourselves. As we sleep, so a guard sleeps outside, protecting this reality from the meddling of time and fast-paced change in Bangladesh. Only noises, muffled through decades of rust and paint, manage to sneak past.