Before tourists come...Part the First

Hello all -
Excuses, excuses...what with power cuts, warnings about the insecurity of cyber cafes and my failure to find a consistent alternative access to email during the past three months, it's not been possible to send regular updates about my recent trip...apologies to those who expressed an interest.

Starting at the end : we arrived safely back home yesterday (Saturday) from a tropical winter - temperatures in the middle 70s Fahrenheit - to frost-bound Britain, a country from which Woolworth's stores had disappeared, MFI (flat-pack furniture) had gone under and goodness knows what else had occurred in our absence.

In the meantime there had been the mixed pleasures of life in a "third-world" country whose national tourist body advises: "See Bangladesh before tourists come." Sound advice, IMO ; what you see is all for real and the welcomes are genuine. The cliche about the poor peasant who'll cook his last chicken for you, depriving his family of eggs until he can afford another hen, is all too true.

One highlight was being directed down a dirt road in the back of beyond to see a Hindu shrine (in a predominantly Muslim country). The shrine, just over a year old, was erected because a Hindu woman had a vision of Lord Shiva sitting on a particular type of tree, with a branch bent just so, with such a bush and such a plant growing nearby in a patch of uncleared jungle.

The men of her village, Muslim as well as Hindu, were sufficiently impressed to go looking, eventually finding the described location miles from their village. Then they set to, Muslims and Hindus, to erect a suitable shrine to the Hindu deity; men and women of both faiths travel to pay their respects, burn incense and pray.

The other main event was the oft-postponed general election which, contrary to normal practice, was free, fair, open and credible. This had involved first cleaning up the list of voters; then developing machinery and software that the developed world could not supply in time; then issuing every voter with a photo ID card; deploying around 800,000 armed service, police and special force personnel to deter the "musclemen" who used to take over polling stations; and finally conducting the poll itself - all under international scrutiny.

The British High Commission, mindful of past election-day violence, issued warnings to Brits to stay off the streets on polling day. Guess who ran out of toilet paper and had to go shopping on the day virtually everything was closed? All motor traffic, with the obvious exceptions, was banned on the day, even rickshaws were static, so it was walk or do without.

I can report that the atmosphere was truly festive. The Bangladeshis, as ever, turned themselves inside out to help the foreigner, recommending I go up here or down there where they thought a little shop just might be open. That's when they weren't mistaking me for a European Union official observer and begging me to inspect the polling stations I had to pass.

For a mile or more the only businesses open were numerous barber shops - busy as could be - and a few roadside snack stalls. Then - oh joy! - a tiny general store open and all was well.