I am currently experiencing something new in Dhaka, a quiet peace. Today is Eid which means that most people in Dhaka have gone to the villages to be with family. It is amazing how quiet the city is right now and how it almost feels like a ghost town. It is definitely nice to return to a quiet Dhaka after being in the quiet Sunderbans of Bangladesh.

The Sunderbans is a group of islands in southern Bangladesh on the Bangladesh/India border. The islands are filled with forests and exotic animals. On Thursday morning I left with a group of people from my church and the Mennonite group in Bangladesh for a 4 day trip...here's a little bit about it.
We left on Thursday morning and within an hour we were finally out of Dhaka. It had been quite a while since I had been outside of the city and really it was the first time I was able to enjoy the countryside of Bangladesh. My first surprise came when our bus crossed the river on a ferry. I was surprised when I got out of the bus and I found people still begging for money. Despite the beggars, it was nice to get out and enjoy the ride across the wide river. When we reached the other side we still had a few hours left in the bus before we reached Kolka where our boat was.
We spent the majority of the time on the boat. Surprisingly there were not too many mosquitoes, but I still slept with a mosquito net. For those of us who slept in our rooms, we often found ourselves waking up in the morning when the fans shut off. My 2nd night was probably the least enjoyable as I fell asleep early and woke up hours later to a fever. Thankfully the fever was gone by the morning.
We took the boat from Kolka to the Bay of Bengal where we had a few activities lined up. We went on a walk through the Mangrove Forest. This was a difficult walk since we really only had mud to walk it. My feet were covered in mud and my sandals slipped off my feet. I tried to walk bare foot but I ended up stepping on a needle. We had men come with us who carried a gun in case if we had any problems with tigers. Although we never saw any tigers, we did see some fresh footprints and the armed guards that were with us starting making loud noises to scare the tigers away.
Eventually we got out of the mud and came to a village that was very pleasant. It looked as if some sort of storm had destroyed part of the area. There were broken pieces of pottery all over the place in one area. The village was pleasant and one home particular had a garden that took up much of their front yard.

The next day we went on a boat ride around the islands to do some sight seeing. My side of the boat kept getting hit with branches and I was kind of out of it since the night before I had the fever. But I soon became more with it and later that morning we went back to one of the islands where we took a long walk through the grass lands to get to the beach.
I had not swam in an ocean since I was 9. It was great to get out and enjoy the water and ride some of the waves. I wish we could've done that for the entire day, but we had a boat to catch. The walk back through the grass land seemed to go quicker and since we weren't walking toward the sun, it was not as hot.
That afternoon we took the boat back to Kolka where we spent the night on the boat. The next morning we took the bus back to Dhaka. On our return trip we noticed a lot of people leaving from Dhaka to the villages to celebrate Eid with their families.

When I finally got to my apartment on Sunday, it finally felt like home. I don’t know why, but for some reason a place doesn’t feel like home to me unless I leave and come back to it. So I guess it’s safe to say that my apartment is now home.

Here is a little bit on my Eid/Iftar experience... First of all, eating spicey food on a rocking boat didn't really work too well for me. But while in Dhaka, Iftar was an enjoyable time. The restaurants were pretty vacant throughout the day, and then every afternoon around 4 there were shops that would open up along the streets as they prepared to break the fast. There was so much food all over the place. Most of the places sold the same thing however they differed on the level of spice. I enjoyed going to the different shops for food, I also enjoyed the lack of traffic every evening at 5:30 when people were breaking the fast.