Boat on the river Buriganga

Bangladesh is a nation of rivers, with more than 230 small and large waterways snaking through the country.  More than half the country's 150 million people depend on these rivers for drinking water, transportation, and food.  Unfortunately, many of these rivers have become so polluted that they are more life-threatening than life-giving.  The worst offender is by far the Buriganga river, which is at the heart of Dhaka's economy and culture.  

A large portion of the city's income is derived

 from river-related ventures, such as trade and shipbuilding. Bangladesh is set to become one of the world's leading shipbuilding nations, and already the banks of the river are full of ships in various stages of construction.  People engage in

 a multitude of other activities right along the river, such as doing laundry, bathing, and transporting people and goods.  But the activity which has done the most damage to the ecology of the river happens a little further inland.  Dhaka's leather tanneries have for years been dumping tons of industrial waste directly into the river, although there are nominal government bans on doing so. The 500 tanneries nearby dispose 4.75 million litres of extremely toxic chemicals and 95 metric tons of solid waste (including raw hides and animal flesh) into the river every year.  In addition, because Dhaka's waste management system is overburdened and mismanaged, 80% of the city's untreated sewage is drained into the river each day.  In sum, more than 2 million cubic tons of waste are poured into the river every day.  This pollution has left the river a toxic wasteland, with levels of mercury, cadmium, and lead at 17 times higher than international standards, and without a single living aquatic animal.  

It was against this charming backdrop that David (my roommate, a UM law student) and I decided to head down to Sadarghat boat terminal in the heart of Old Dhaka for a boat ride.  Of course, we didn't know then about the levels of pollution, or the fact that it was going to be well over 110F degrees that day.  All we knew was that a ride along the river was the top rated tourist activity in Dhaka according to Lonely Planet and that we were in for a memorable experience.  

Sadarghat is one of the world's busiest river terminals, serving more than 30,000 people per

day.  In Bangladesh this translates to even higher than usual levels of chaos and crowding. Even driving down to the terminal the south end of the city in Old Dhaka took most of the morning, as our car swerved and dodged pedestrians, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, buses, animals, and giant holes in the road which seemed not to be dug for any particular purpose.  At the terminal (i.e. a dark, wooden, falling-down warehouse) our car was immediately mobbed by boatmen and curious onlookers.  Although Dhaka is still a city where you can go to the major "tourist attractions" on a weekend and not see a single foreign-looking tourist, enough people appear to have taken Lonely Planet's advice and come in search, as we had, of a boat ride that the locals knew what we wanted.  Our driver kindly helped us negotiate a fare with a "licensed tourist guide" and held on to his ID card as collateral to ensure our safe return.  

Our guide, Jewel, was a gentleman in his early thirties who spoke surprisingly good English.  His co-guide, whose name I never did catch, was a smiley young man whose parents were from India.  As we chatted about America and Obama (a favorite topic of people here) we walked through the decrepit building, down the rickety wharf, and through a large, rusty passenger ferry, at the end of which we were told to crawl down into a tiny wooden canoe, the sea-worthiness of which seemed doubtful.  

An umbrella quickly appeared over us to shield us from the already blazing 10am sun.  Our

 boat was rowed, Venetian style, by an older man with a severely weather-beaten face and sinewy if skeletal body.  While the boatman paddled us along through what was obviously sludge rather than water, I tried to use my little knowledge of Indian popular culture to make conversation and form some sort of 'please-don't-kidnap-me-I'm-one-of-you' bond with our guides.  My knowledge of Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan quickly expended, but luckily we came up on the shipyards at that moment and had a new topic of conversation.  Until then we had been rowing alongside other little canoes or dodging the large ferries which seemed more than willing to plow us over, and had thus been to distracted to observe the huge hulls that lined the opposite bank.  

The ships were packed right along the shore, but also far back on land.  Some being build new were bright orange, yellow and green; the older boats being restored were dull and brown, their thick layer of rust being chipped off painstakingly by men with small pointy sticks.  Other men were scrubbing, painting, welding, and doing all sorts of other ship-related things I don't know about.  Jewel asked if we would like to take a tour of the shipyards.  Although David was extremely hesitant to accept this offer (even though it came with the amusing promise "We will have no problem.  And your problem is my problem, is my country's problem.")  I have long since learned to do whatever the person in control of my transportation tells me to do, so we (or rather then boatman) maneuvered our canoe through a field of other canoes to the shore.  

Our arrival was greeted with amusement and the standard stares.  We responded with stares of awe of our own, amazed at the sheer gigantic size of the ships and the backbreaking work needed to build them.  We walked among the ships, carefully trending over the lumber, metal rods, and electrical equipment strewn on the sand, and then further back into the maze of shanties which the shipbuilders call home.  On one side of the yards were shacks filled with welders, pipe-makers, and engine assembly teams; on the other barbers, tea shops, and homes.  There were many men and children running around, some working and some playing cricket, but only one woman, wearing a full, black burqa.

In a sign of the times, as we tried to unobtrusively take pictures, the locals whipped out their cell phone cameras and began snapping shots of us.  It was apparently an exciting morning for all.

After 15 minutes walking around we climbed back in our boat and set up a little further upstream, enjoying the view, although not the river's smell.  By then there were dozens of canoes crossing from one side of the river to the other, as well as some just floating along with children doing back flips off of them.  The barges and massive shipping vessels continued to dominant traffic, forcing some fancy paddle-work by the boatmen to avoid being capsized.  

Tired of going upstream the co-guide threw a rope onto a small barge passing in the opposite direction and tethered our canoe to it.  We climbed on board the boat, which was carrying sand (apparently needed for construction) and enjoyed the shade.  And even though the movie came out more than a decade ago, we were forced to take Titanic "king of the world" shots from the front of the boat.  (I refuse to post that picture here.)

Eventually we left the kind barge captain alone and got back in our canoe.  As we drifted back towards Sadarghat, I was fascinated by the scenes of life along the riverbanks--kids playing in the water, women washing clothes, men mending their canoes, people shopping in the colorful stores that dotted the sides.  It was a similar experience to my journey two summers ago from Cambodia to Vietnam on a boat through the Mekong Delta, except that pristine, lush, green setting had been replaced by heaps of trash on the banks and oil-slicked water.  

We passed Sadarghat terminal and went down a little ways to see some of the less crowded, but no less interesting areas.  The guides tried to give the boatman a rest by tying our boat to a "party boat" (i.e. passenger ferry with karaoke but no women or alcohol--not much of a party if you ask me) but the boat cop (?) kicked us off.  After taking a picture of David pretending to paddle the boat I ended up sitting backwards, with my back to the co-guide.  Apparently I had a grey hair sticking out, so he quickly pulled it.  I thought that would be the end of it, but somehow it became a game/grooming session, with him pulling out a dozen of my gray hairs (I'm getting old) and me pretending it was funny (and wondering how my life got to this point).   

Finally, sweaty, exhausted from the sun and overwhelmed by the experience, we got back to the boat terminal at noon, our driver anxiously awaiting our safe return.  Although there was hassling over the cost (we thought it was 300 Taka--$4.25--for the whole trip and they wanted 300 Taka per hour), it was definitely one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and a unique welcome to Bangladesh.  It was not the relaxing, calm ride promised by Lonely Planet, but I'll take a ride with excitement, misadventure and a little inappropriate grooming over that any day.