Roadside tea stall

A tiny little tea stall on the side of the road near or house. Note that this is actually built on stilts, suspended over the drainage ditch.  Once again, they manage to make use of every possible open space in the crowded city.

Haircut

I pass this outdoor barber stand on my way to work each day. It looks like the barber does a brisk business, offering both haircuts and shaves. I think he charges between a dollar and two.

Rickshaw Rest Stop

This is a roadside restaurant for rickshaw drivers and others who are looking for the basics – bananas, bread, and a cigarette. (Others nearby offered slightly more filling options, including eggs and noodles.) Because of the food price increases, rice has become unaffordable for people at the lowest income levels – like rickshaw drivers. They might only eat bananas and biscuits after pedaling their rickshaw around all day in the sun.

Gulshan Circle

We had lunch in a restaurant overlooking Gulshan Circle 2 today, so I could take some semi-aerial pictures of the circle. Only half of the actual circle in shown here, to give a little bit more detail. This was lunchtime on a Sunday, the first day of the workweek here. (We were off for Columbus Day. Thanks Columbus!) Anyways, you can see tons of people waiting for the bus, and get a general idea of the traffic flow.

Durga Puja 2

The most amazing part of the panjals constructed for Durga Puja is that they were put up right over the existing roadways. The area of Old Dhaka where most of the festivities took place is a crowded maze of tiny roads, and for this week it was pedestrian-only. The temples were built on bamboo scaffolding right over the walkways, making full use of all available space in the already crowded city.

Street sweeper

Ladies like this pass by every day to sweep the street in front of our house. Since trash collection services are limited and/or sporadic (as far as I know) keeping the streets clean is a rather large task.

Popular

We tend to attract a lot of attention when we venture out in Dhaka. This is M with … a bunch of people. We were on a walking tour and this friendly group surrounded us when we stopped to check out some old buildings. The kids love seeing their picture in the digital camera.

Sugarcane press

This is a mobile, hand-cranked sugarcane press, which squeezes the syrup out of the sugarcane -  leaving you with essentially liquid sugar.  We use the syrup here to sweeten drinks like lemonade and ice tea.  It’s fantastic.

Rural market in the rain

Veggies at a rural market. Prominently featured is eggplant, one of the main foods used for Iftar, the meal for breaking the Ramadan fast each day. Due to Ramadan, eggplant prices are up to 80 taka a kilo in the city (about $1.15), but it is fresher in the countryside and costs about half as much.

Work site

Workers in old Dhaka demolishing a building by hand. They told me that this buliding was two stories tall and it took them about a month to take it down, with 15 men working on the project. The residential building is giving way to a new hospital or medical building of some kind.

Lots of projects like this that would be done with machines in the U.S. are done by hand here, either because the machines aren’t available or because the cost of labor is so minimal – or both. In most construction sites work goes on 24 hours a day.

Rickshaw stop

A rickshaw stop in our neighborhood.