blondefish.blogspot.com: September 2010

Dhaka: The Details

I sat there in the thick darkness: with no light and no air-con it was getting darker and thicker. Normally when there's a power cut the generator springs to life within about 20 seconds. During that time, most people just carry on doing in the darkness what they were previously doing in the light. This led to quite an amusing incident during the policy workshop when the speaker just kept speaking and referring to his power points, even though all 70 of us had been plunged into total darkness. Annoyingly, he was also making interesting points, so I had to rush to catch up when the lights finally whirred back on.

The power can go out five times a day, and the call to prayer also rings out five times a day. This can make for quite an inefficient day. In Khulna I was participating in a farmer training workshop when the call to prayer started just before lunch. The speaker stopped talking and it was just as if someone had pressed pause on the tape: we all froze in position for around 2 minutes before the prayer ended and he carried on as if nothing had happened. I had to try very hard to stifle my giggles. It was a definite movie moment.

It made up for finding ants in my weetabix this morning.

Dhaka

Dhaka has been quite a place of contradictions...and it's only been 24 hours.

We arrived yesterday to what can only be described as a total mess...and that wasn't really Dhaka's fault. Well, the traffic was, but that was the least of our worries. The traffic in Dhaka basically takes the place of the weather in an equivalent normal British conversation: everyone complains about the traffic all the time, everyone has an opinion on the traffic over the past few days, today and tomorrow, and you can get every kind of traffic in one day. It's one of those topics that both opens and shuts a conversation; the sort of discussion that you could imagine having at a bus-stop with a stranger, except that you don't talk to strangers at bus-stops here, even about the traffic.

But on to the other worries. Like a hungry Ingrid. Thanks to the traffic we took hours to get from the bus station to the hotel by the local 'CNG' vehicle (pretty much a rickshaw with a motor), at which point we were very late for a scheduled Skype call between all 4 partner countries. And we were ahead of the pack - half the team were still on the road and the long and the short of it is that we got to eat at 9pm - having skipped lunch because er, there was no lunch on the bus trip (note to self for the return journey). Actually, it was possibly the best meal so far because it was a) plentiful b) there was cutlery c) it was free, thanks to a large number of Europeans with deep wallets (definitely not me) who had flown in for a policy workshop held earlier today.

What the budgets and the hotel in which the policy workshop was held and the traffic shows is an enormous gap between the haves and the have nots i.e. those who move about the city in fancy cars, who are driven by chauffeurs with a chauffeur's cap and white gloves (that would be me then, but by accident), those who stay in the fancy Gulshan area where it's safe to walk around at night, safe to be a white person, safe to have a social life (in the British Club, Australian Club, Other White Person Club), those who don't take rickshaws for fear of being robbed, who have to declare to the UN when they go further than 25km outside the city of Dhaka, who have generators who power up when the power fails (5 times a day) - and the scruffy kids who tap on the car window selling you their homemade pop corn, or the beggars who grip your arm as they try to wheedle alms from you as you walk past (really hurts by the way), or the field assistant who shares a bed with his mate - 10 of them piled into 3 rooms on the roof of a residence block (no electricity, no enclosed stairwell, no security).

It's actually all about security here. Security is what led a member of my team to traverse the city in rush-hour to pick me up and take me to the workshop this morning. Security is what made them insist I take a hotel taxi to my new abode (i.e. the chauffeur driven one costing $10 - an absolute fortune, equivalent to one night in a hotel in Khulna). Security aspects curtail my freedom, but they also keep me safe. There's even talk about one of the team assistants coming up on the 8 hour bus journey to Dhaka just to take me back to Khulna.

But, for the next week I will live in the middle - both of it all, and between the haves and have-nots. And that's because 10 years ago, I became great friends with Rosanna. We shared a room and a number of adventures in New Zealand and I attended her wedding just a couple of years later....where I met her brother Alam, who is currently living in Dhaka and knows Kajul, and I am currently staying with Kajul's daughter Nadia, her husband and their baby girl.

I hated the hotel in Khulna - apart from being musty and uncomfortable, I just don't like spending all that time by myself. So staying with a family in Dhaka is comfortable and welcome. They are a middle class family who has spent time in America - which puts them in the middle...neither in the ex-pat life of Gulshan, nor in the impoverished life in corrugated huts under the bridge. I am absolutely delighted to be with a family for a bit and the only downside is that it looks like I will have to return to Khulna sooner rather than later. It's clear that Dhaka is where the action is, but Khulna is where the work is.

To Dhaka...so we thought

Sign at the tourist agent when we went to change our bus tickets:

We were originally scheduled to leave this morning for Dhaka, but yesterday evening when my research assistant and I met down at the local pub for a beer (I wish, make that a darkened, mosquito-infested tea shack), we got a phone call from the team leader who recently returned to teaching duties at his University. Apparently the structured questionnaire to be implemented over a month of surveying 400 farms in each of the 4 countries and across 4 species had just arrived. Unfortunately, there were problemes for poor Bangladesh. Being at the bottom of the scale in terms of development meant that the questionnaire wasn't entirely suitable for the conditions here, and after reading it, I totally agreed. But in a Skype call scheduled for Dhaka tomorrow afternoon, we needed a bit more proof - and someone who could communciate this to head office in Stirling. So I was asked if I could go into the field today and pilot the 45 minute, 9-page survey over a couple of prawn farms. Apparently I was now 'key' in the field, what with my contacts and 10 days of experience so far...and of course flattery works wonders, so I agreed.

This meant changing my hotel reservation here, changing my hotel reservation in Dhaka, cancelling our bus tickets, getting new ones, and trying to fob off the general manager from the hotel who insists in inviting me for coffees and dinners and photo opportunities and the like.

So we went back into the field today, to villages just made for punting on a warm summer's day. That's what it felt like, with the river running through villages and the sun shining through the palm trees, although the reality was quite different as the canal was green with sludge and the sun was beating ferociously.

Our first interview was in another tea-shop - this time perched on stilts over a shrimp pond. We all sat cross-legged on the floor and helped ourselves to some tea while the obligatory crowd gathered and the tea-shop owner rubbed his hands in glee at all these customers.

While waiting for the translation to take place, I suddenly spied a break in my chain-of-custody. Let's just say that ever since I was sick last week I have been feeling better, but still a little, er, unwell. I've been trying to work out what this continuous source of contamination is, and have made the best efforts to only eat in certain restaurants, use bottled water to brush my teeth, order horrible sugary drinks but at least you can see where they come from etc. And here I was, watching the limited number of tea cups being filled with tea from a luke-warm thermos, passed to a customer, drunk, returned, dipped in a bucket of water, and then returned to the tray for the next fill-up. And I've taken tea with Ali every second day or so since I was sick.

That was the first time I refused tea, and I hope I start to feel better soon.

And the interviews? Well, each took two and a half hours and I will have plenty to say in Dhaka tomorrow.

A literature search

I've spent the morning in search of reading material, mostly for the bus journey to Dhaka tomorrow (8 hours) but also for the 30 minute waits I have to put up with anytime I order food. Since finishing two books in English and two in French (normally reading in French makes the book last longer, but since my Danish colleague left a week ago, I've had to sit and wait by myself for food...perfect reading time...until the books ran out), I've been reading the local daily paper from end to end and upside down.

Finding suitable replacement reading materials took the whole morning. First we went to book-shop-row, which was filled with old and dusty paperbacks - mostly John Grisham, English grammar exercises and Charles Dickens, all of which I've read and I figured I was a bit beyond the grammar exercises. After an hour of trailing from shop to shop (in actual fact these shops are just metre-long wooden counters on the pavement with all the books stacked in a hut behind them so it took a long time to find each English book, show it to me, have it rejected and then start again), someone had the bright idea of trying the University quarter where all the English textbooks live.

Off we went again in our rickshaw - not as comfy as they might look. This time I wore a scarf to cut down on some of the staring, but you pretty much learn to ignore it. From reading the paper so thoroughly, I've realised that staring is just one of those character-traits that belong to Bangladeshis, like the English drinking tea or the French striking. It's just what they do. And even journalists in the paper take the odd jibe at national-staring tendencies and the inability of locals to look away or not join a crowd.

Linking crowds, Universities and strikes, I was quite surprised to see this little crowd marching down the street. They are students striking and protesting about...wait, I should know this...I did actually read it in the paper this morning...but I've forgotten...and anyway, they weren't really much of a crowd.

But the point is, I got my books! Turns out they have all the correct covers......but are blatantly photocopies. Can't complain when I got 5 for $15.

Worlds apart but not words apart

'If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

If I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast'

Psalm 139

I remember that one summer, possibly the year I was in America, my siblings were scattered across various parts of Europe, working and holidaying over the summer break. Chatting about that summer later with my mum, I remember her saying that she had no power anymore to protect us; all she could do was pray and trust in God for her children's safety. Add a decade or so, and the boundaries of trust and faith are again expanded; one sister is heading to Haiti for 6 months, I am in Bangladesh, and precious friends and family cover every continent and 20 countries in between. How much more we have to trust. How much more it is we have to trust for.

But the verse isn't about that - it's about God's love and care for us, wherever we are. And that is truly of immeasurable comfort.

And I thank God for communication technology - that we can be worlds apart but not words apart *

* (Gallagher 2010)

Food Foray

Well, for my first meal in 36 hours, it was hard to find something on the menu. If I'd been at home, I probably would have started with toast or rice. But just the thought of rice made my stomach churn. So I opted for the spaghetti bolognaise. I know, I know, but I knew it was important to eat something before I keeled over.

I brought the paper with me to read. I always have to wait at least 25 minutes for my food so I've learned to come perpared. And as a foreign guest, I get the daily paper for free. But I'd gone through it twice before my order finally arrived. Well, first the 'spaghetti' came first and as the waiter put it down, he proudly announced that this spaghetti has not been boiled for 20 minutes as they normally do. Oh no, THIS spaghetti has been boiled for 40 minutes. Especially for me. Because I was sick. The waiters know a lot about me because I see them at least morning and evening (except for the past few days of course which sparked some comment). One waiter seems to have taken me under his wing and is practically my personal valet. As I sit at a table by myself, I feel a bit like the Queen of Sheba being waited on hand and foot.

The spaghetti was basically large and fat Asian noodles, garnished with a slice of green pepper, still with the seeds beautifully preserved, and surrounded by orange slices. Yes, oranges. Oh and chips. Chips that had never seen a potato. They just seemd to be batter fried in batter.

And the bolognaise had never seen a tomato either, nor had the chef ever known anyone who has ever heard of Italy. The sauce was based on sweetened tomato ketchup. And that's all I'm going to say about it.

And my fairly simple order of a Coke (for its rehydrating effects), turned into a bottle of fizzy water with squeezed lemon juice in a jug on the side. Not sure how that happened because he clearly wrote down 'coke'.

I even had to eat most of it because the General Manager came and joined me and declared his love for me. I've been working in his office for the past few days now (needed a change of scene from my musty bedroom) and every day we've chatted a bit more. I don't think he was actually trying to tell me loves me, at least I hope not, but I do think he's just really proud of his hotel, really proud of the foreigners eating his hearty food and just likes to be friendly. So tomorrow I have an appointment to drop past his office again, this time for a photo opportunity.

But you know, you can never shrug these people off because you never know who they know...turns out he's friends with the shrimp guy at UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme) and you never know where THAT might lead....

PS. In the hope of brightening up this post, above is a photo of my hotel taken a day after this post was written. It's taken from the restaurant over the road where I went for my lunch. It's a pretty snazzy restaurant, especially by local standards. Inside it's all wood and beige couches downstairs, and upstairs there is a massive deck with a big-top-wall-less tent thing covering the roof. It looks like a beach bar. I had a really nice lunch there (they actually brought what I ordered) after a morning of stealing a local NGOs data on local shrimp and prawn producers. Although I soon began to bake under the awning and it felt a lot hotter than 34 degrees. Just behind the big red advertising billboard flaps my laundry that I handed to room service this morning. Seems they do all the drying on the hotel roof, so I even got a shot of all my knickers flapping in the wind!

Fancy a Cuppa?

Having been cooped up and suffering for the past 48 hours, it was a welcome relief for Ali, our field assistant, to call me and suggest we meet up for a cup of tea. Tea shops are to Bangladeshis as pubs are to the Brits (no alcohol allowed in this Muslim country), although you have little desire after 4 hours of drinking tea to bash someone on the nose.

We took a rickshaw - a journey during which I played the starring role again (fingers pointing, people stopping in mid-movement to stare etc) - to the university campus where Ali is currently staying and where apparently the best tea is to be found. Maybe, but certianly not the best tea shops. The local student tea shop is a shack. There are no walls and the roof is made of splinters of wood. One darkened end of the shack (with walls) is the 'kitchen', while the other three sides just have benches nailed to posts for sitting on.

The tea doesn't come from a kettle but from a great big thermos, and it always, always comes already saturated with sugar. There's no two ways about it. And it generally also comes with condensed milk as the only option. The uni tea shop is obviously more upmarket than it seems as I was even offered a lemon option.

Of course this being on the 'other' side of the bridge, there is no electricity and massive kerosene lamps are lit when darkness falls. These things seem to belch out some sort of wood smoke smell, and the place soon becomes grey and misty. But at a third of a penny for a cup, you kind of can't complain.

Looking at the teabag in the water suddenly gave me an idea. You know how different teas are made for different water - so that's how you end up with Yorkshire tea and Scottish Blend and other regional varieties? It's because the water is different in different places, so Scottish Blend suits the soft water of Scotland but Lipton Tea is the best choice for the hard and lukewarm water served in the European Parliament in Brussels. But try and put your Scottish Blend bag in that Belgian water and the thing won't stew. Although for some reason, Tetleys seems to be so strong it works anywhere. Anyway, on that premise, I figured that the local shampoo must be made for the local water.

I've been having terrible problems with the water here. The groundwater here is brackish - a mix of salt water and freshwater as we are so close to the coast. The high salt content in the water that comes out the shower feels like I'm washing myself in the sea and it's done nothing for my hair, leaving it waxy and disgusting. So I tried the local shampoo instead of my posh brands. And it worked. Fine, flyaway hair is back.

As Hugo Drax, the villain in Moonraker put it: "You have arrived at a propitious moment Mr Bond, conincident with your country's one indisputable contribution to Western civilisation - afternoon tea".

Not your average pub:

Time on the Inside

After 10 days, I finally succumbed to 'Dehli-belly' and had to spend the whole day in the hotel. I haven't been able to eat for a day, but it was almost a welcome break: I was able to write a quick report of the past week and start some planning for the coming weeks.

This hotel is an odd little place. It's billed as an 'international standard' hotel and is one of the top two hotels in Khulna, charging a whopping $10 a night. But they have quite a problem with humidity in the rooms, so the sheets feel damp and everything smells mouldy. You have to keep the fan running in the bathroom to keep the air moving, which makes an awful noise and numerous times I've had to ask reception to bring me up a missing towel or replace toilet paper. The glass is thin so the outside street sounds like it's in the corridor, and I always have at least a half-hour wait to get served any kind of food at all. There is also a prayer room on the second floor and five times a day the Imam emerges, takes off his shoes, stands in the stairwell, faces west (which happens to be a wall), covers his ears with both his hands, shuts his eyes and wails his call to prayer. But the lobby man salutes me whenever I pass him, everyone calls me m'am and I've been given the boss's office to do my write-up. The boss said to me earlier today 'ah, so much love has passed between you and me these past few days and now you leave soon for Dhaka and then home and I won't see you again' with an innocently delightful smile on his face, before asking me 'are you married? babies?'.

View from my bedroom window:

World Car Free Day Today!

Images

Well, while I seem to have photo upload capabilities, I've uploaded some images of daily life of some Bangladeshis.

These guys here are prawn harvesters. They are a team of 5 lads who go around the farms harvesting the prawns. It can take them a whole day to do a pond, during which they are chest-deep in this muddy water with whatever else the farmer has decided to add. They complain of getting 'fever and shakes' and for their efforts are paid the equivalent of $10, which they split (7.5 EUR/6.5 GBP but I'll use USD from now on as that is what we use in our studies).

Here we have a typical mode of transport in rural areas. They call it a van here. A van-puller will earn around $2 on a good day.

Here is a typical house in a rural area: 1 large room split into one big bed and then one big space. A family living here will earn about $20 a month and their main role is to feed the prawns and for security - to stop folk nabbing the prawns. Benefits they get are to eat as many of the prawns as they want, to grow vegetables, rice and livestock around the ponds, and then men can also work elsewhere (with the women and children acting as security in another sense). Often, families leave because there are no schools nearby.

This is how ice crosses the street from the ice-factory to the ice-seller (there's an enormous segregation of the value chain in Bangladesh).

And here, snail crushers. Their job is to do what it says on the tin. They pull the snail meat out of the snail. The snail meat then becomes feed for prawns and the shells are either crushed to make poultry feed or powdered to make fishmeal. The women and children earn 1 US dollar cent for every kg of snails. The snail crushers make 14 US dollar cents for every sac of 55 kg they crush.

There you have it: the real cost of our food. It brings us back to that old Nike conundrum: support the industry (eat prawns) and lock these people into poverty, or don't eat prawns but the risk is that there are few other livelihoods options. There must be a third way.

Through the Keyhole...

Yay! I got a photo to upload! This pretty much sums up what it's like. The guy in the flowery shirt to my left is the team leader, the guy to my right in the stripey shirt is the field assistant and my translator is taking the photo. And the rest are all my fans. In practise, the team leader does most of the translating but the translator accompanies us to learn what sorts of questions we ask and how, for when I am left to my own devices.

Doing Business..Bangla Style

However much I want to, I just can't upload photos...not on this connection at any rate.

It's a pity, because not only does a picture say a thousand words, but it saves me from having to write them too.

It's amazing how easy it is to adapt to a place - once you accept that total chaos IS the place. Unpaved roads, drivers-on-speed, honking, standing around, staring..this is how things work here. And in many ways, it works to my advantage.

For example, we decide to head to a particular village about 1 hour from Khulna in the prawn and shrimp producing area of the district. We have maybe chosen that village because it has something of interest - such as a shrimp auction, a centre for prawn production, ice factories, snail trading (from which they make the feed) etc. We arrive, I get out, everyone stares. Everything stops. Then everyone comes to me. It's actually ideal in terms of research. Within a maximum of 1 minute, I will be surrounded by 30 to 50 people. We generally have someone in mind that we want to meet so we go first to that location. The people follow. We introduce ourselves (well, the Bangladeshi team leader introduces us - there are also two field assistants with us), we are offered seats, tea, the crowd settles down, and we start the questions. As time goes by, the crowd begins to contribute to the answers and eventually we settle on someone else to interview, generally by just turning round in our chairs. This is actually a valid method of sampling and I'm pretty lucky. After 15 minutes or so when the children are bored and the adults who have work have to get back to it, it pretty much whittles down to a core group of 10 people - a perfect focus group discussion. It's also easier because business is virtually conducted on the street anyway - there are few walls, closed rooms, curtains etc, and everyone seems to accept that there will be an audience at all times.

Driving has taken a bit longer to adapt to. No pedestrian, cart puller, bicycle, rickshaw driver, moped driver or the driver of any other vehicle will ever look behind him. That means that our driver sends out helpful 'beeeeps' to let people know we are coming..generally around 2 seconds before we might hit them. I don't know how there aren't more accidents because a substantial amount of our journey is undertaken in the middle of the road as we skirt around all of the other vehicles mentioned above...and of course oncoming traffic does the same. And the roads are terrible which can cause a vehicle to lurch in an unanticipated manner. Unfortunately, page 3 of the newspaper here is reserved for the death and injury toll on Bangladesh's roads - it approaches almost 30 dead every day, and seeing it in action, it doesn't surprise me how.

I eat Bangladeshi food, in the field, with the team, with my hands. All of which seems to earn me some respect among my colleagues. And we are getting good and crucial information, which makes the long days (8 hours minimum in the field plus travel time plus the write-up each night) worth it.

Many people are very poor here. And I'm told many don't have jobs - hence all the standing around and staring when I pitch up. Most people live in bamboo huts with one big bed for the whole family and a living area the same size as the bed for everything else. The aquaculture ponds for the toilet. The aquaculture ponds for bathing. And the aquaculture ponds for food. That's just the way it is. We've met all sorts of people - from rich land owners who were in the shrimp business during the boom years and sucked it dry to pay for other business ventures, such as the hotel I'm staying in, and we've also met the desperately poor - those who earn a dollar a day spending 8 hours in pond water harvesting prawns. And I think we're getting close to meeting representatives of almost everyone in between. But few women. It's still men who do most of the sort of work we are interested in and most of the talking. I will have to track down women over the coming weeks and also those who like to talk to us least - the rich processors, buying agents and government officials.

All told, it's been an extremely good first week, if a long one (no weekend here!). I've been bitten terribly by fleas (a straw mat at one shrimp auction), but have not succumbed to any food poisoning, and while Khulna's finest hotel has plenty of room for improvement, I am well looked after by my team. It's Business...Bangla style.

Itching for Interviews

Well today I was given the 'guest seat of honour' in an auction market. For the occasion they specially found a straw mat that had been rolled up in a corner and which they laid carefully on my bench-like throne while my 40 or so loyal subjects crowded around me staring.

Turns out the thing was infested with fleas and I've been horribly and painfully bitten where you really don't want to be.

When the power is out...

This is the notice in the lift - a very necessary one when there are daily power cuts. I also visit Khulna University this evening with my research assistant who studied here. It's on the edge of town and you have to cross a bridge to get it. However, the electricity doesn't cross the bridge and all light beyond that is from generators, candles or paraffin lights. It's a little odd to have to feel your way over the mud floors to a spare bench in the local tea house (it's essentially the local pub) - but helpful in terms of anonymity.

Bangladesh Taka

How this:

Becomes this:

And stretches my money belt to breaking point...

Thankfully, long loose shirts are my friend here.

Job Description: PhD

Required:
- a stomach of galvanised steel
- valium-like state during any road travel
- the ego of a star (to enjoy the staring)
- the eyes of a bat (because headlights are only for flicking on for long enough to show all your passengers the bus approaching in the middle of the road. NB. You are also in the middle of the road)
- a local driver because there are no street signs....anywhere
- no car sickness even when hurtling towards approaching buses
- short nails so you don't find the rest of your lunch a couple of hours later stuck in your nails (food is eaten with hands)
- a taste for hot, sweet tea, which is served at every opportunity
- a bladder like a camel (see above note plus lack of toilet facilities of any kind - apart from the local shrimp pond)

Bangladesh

In the grand scheme of things, this is where Bangladesh is:

And here is a map of Bangladesh with the major cities I'll be visiting marked (Dhaka, Mymensingh and Khulna):

Bangladesh is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and the Bay of Bengal to the south. Together with the Indian state of West Bengal just over the border, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The name 'Bangladesh' means 'Country of Bengal' in the official Bengali language. The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal and India in 1947 which created two roughly Muslim regions (East Pakistan and West Pakistan) with (Hindu) India between them. East Pakistan was 1600km from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh in 1971.

Today, Bangladesh is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a ban on religiously-affiliated political parties. It is also the seventh largest population is the world at around 160 million people. Bangladesh is also one of the most densely-populated countries on earth. By comparison, Russia has the same population but spread over an area 120 times larger. Life expectancy is around 63 years in Bangladesh and 60% of the population is aged 25 or younger. GDP per capita (ppp) was 1 465 American dollars in 2009 (it's 35 200 in the UK). Bangladesh is ranked 112th in the world on the Human Poverty Index (which focuses on the proportion of people who live below certain threshold levels in each of the dimensions of the human development index). The adult illiteracy rate (those aged 15 and above) is 46.5% in Bangladesh and 20% of the population do not have access to an improved water source.

Dhaka:

The Khulna coast where I'll be 'in the field'...quite literally:

Well, those are the statistics...now let's go and find out what it's really like.

Stopover

I left the luxury of our resort earlier today and found myself an el cheapo airport hotel to spend the night in...which has only managed to remind me how far gone are the days of grotty Asian hotels à-la-backpacking - and good riddance to them. Shame then, that I am now operating under a budget that was effectively written on the back of an envelope over two years ago when things were different, but has since been written in stone. And it's not that the hotel itself is grotty. It's just that I'm not going out after dark.

But while it was still light, I was able to get a snapshot of the area. I am now south-east of Bangkok and decided not to stay in the city itself because I have been there numerous times, it's a hassle to negotiate morning rush-hour to get back to the airport, and I'll be spending three months in Thailand next year so will see a lot of it anyway, I'm sure.

This area is a little bit like Venice. Actually, it's not at all like Venice, but there are waterways instead of streets and channels carve up the area, so there are a lot of bridges that carry pedestrians, bikes and mopeds, which is what made me think of Venice.

The water is very fast moving, and very brown. But there seems to be plenty of creatures that call it home. I saw absolutely enormous river fish grabbing bits of goodness-knows-what floating past. And as you can see below, there's an area cornered off in the water that is also being aerated, which makes me think there might be prawns down there (not uncommon in Thail waterways but normally only in rural areas).

There are also water pipes that criss-cross the river and I suspect it provides most of the water for the houses surrounding the river. And of course it's also the laundrette and the dishwasher for the hawker stalls that line the river.

All of this activity attracts stray dogs....(20 at the last count and all being fed their daily portion of rice by the woman in the boat below who has obviously taken a liking to the mangy things)...

...and results in plastic bags and other assorted items carelessly thrown into the waterways, which tend to get caught up in the vegetation, rot in the hot sun, and smell.

Kind of makes me want to get to Bangladesh....

Foot Reflexology

Reflexology is the physical act of applying pressure to the feet and hands using specific thumb, finger and hand movements. It is based on a system of zones that reflect an image of the body on the feet, with the premise that manipulating these zones results in a physical change to the correlated body area.

I'm not sure about all that, but having your feet massaged feels go-oo-od. And in this part of the world it is ch-e-ee-ap.

So we get it a l-o-t!

Here I am with my line manager Froukje (to my right), a Swedish PhD student to my left and another Stirling University PhD-er on his left. 1.5 hours and 3 quid later:

The family expands...

...horizontally (in number) and vertically (in accomplishments)

Congrats Fee!

Hari Raya

Eid ul-Fitr - often abbreviated to just Eid - is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. 'Eid' is an Arabic word meaning 'festival, while 'Fitr' means 'to purify'.

In Malaysia, Eid is more commonly known as Hari Raya, literally meaning 'Celebration Day', and it is one of the biggest holidays of the year (think Christmas). The atmosphere is very festive, the malls are packed, cooking occurs all day, and we get two days of work....

...except for me, who spent 6 weeks in a Muslim country until last Thursday (Malaysia) and will leave for 3 months in another one on Tuesday (Banglaesh), but who is spending Eid itself in Buddhist Thailand. Nevertheless, I am in interesting surroundings:

The hotel:

A new language for me?: Bangla

Gone....working

I have gone here, where we will be working in order to prepare the surveys for the 4 different countries (Bangladesh, China, Vietnam and Thailand).

It just so happens that I will be staying an extra day to finish off the methodology preparation before heading to Bangaldesh. Yes, yes, ok...to swim.

Here's hoping this last lap of luxury will keep my going through whatever the next 3 months bring!

I'm afraid I'm not the only one working. The streets are lined with scantily-clad women in towering heels, offering themselves to the mostly white, portly and aged men walking past and inspecting the wares. There are bars with no walls and 100% full of women, all facing outwards so that the guys walking past on the street can choose well. There are old and fat white men everywhere, everywhere, with tiny and beautiful Thai women snatching their chance at being wined and dined, nice clothes and jewellery or the ultimate dream: a new life abroad.

Power Jump

Here is the new craze that is hitting my gym! Power Jump!

Everyone gets their own individual small trampoline in order to spend 50 or so minutes bouncing around furiously on it. Apparently the point is not to gain height when you jump but depth i.e. you work out more by pushing down more on the trampoline, not by jumping higher. So your head stays at the same height, it's just your legs that work up and down and up and down and up and down until they give way.

There are two types of jumping. The first works the core and you maintain a straight body while jumping on one leg, hip hop moves (leg movements indescribable, arms at a contorted angle), cowboy moves (well, you can imagine) and all the rest of it. In fact you need quite a lot of core strength in order to prevent yourself propelling sideways and landing on your neighbour at speed during the one-legged moves. The second type of jump is called power cardio or something. Bend slightly at the waist, 'lock' the abs (their favourite term) and then jump jump jump!

In my gym they turn on the disco lights, up the volume and employ an insanely energetic and super-toned Brazilian woman to take the class. It's totally brilliant fun but completely knackering - one of the best cardio workouts I've ever done. And as someone else put it more wittily: like manic hamsters swopping their wheels for trampolines.

London 2012

For those who plan ahead, here is where to register your interest for tickets for the 2012 Olympics (27 July - 12 August).

Let's hope the games are better than the logo. Apparently 35 000 people signed a petition to scrap it, but it cost £400k and took almost a year to create. It's based on the numbers 2 0 1 2.

Instead, a few other people have publicly submitted alternatives:

I think the first one is brilliant but probably too late now.

Hurricane Fiona

Sunday morning

It might be for the reasons the Myers-Briggs personality-type labels me an E for Extrovert, or simply personal preference, or habit or foresight or a mixture, but I really don't like living alone. Since I've been old enough to acquire one, I've always had a flatmate. For a long time they came in multiples. As I've aged and both needs and preferences have developed, the number of flatmates I have at any one time has dropped (although I must admit the quality has gone up)*. The only time I considered living on my own was in Paris, and I was joined within a month by a flatmate and within a couple more, a very greedy cat.

So I have thoroughly loved being part of the Allison Family over the past 6 weeks (although I do considerably more washing up than their two teenage sons). The other advantage of course of flatmates and a family that hosts you, is that it instantly broadens your circle of friends. Or in my case, my street cred.

The white MG is why:

Every Sunday morning the family drives to a local hill, joins up with a couple of other families and those who have the energy take off for a run (i.e. up the hill) and the rest of us power walk with the dogs and a couple of monkeys in tow. One of the crazy runners is a German (what else), who happens to have preferred a classic car to his secretary as his mid-life crisis and is now in possession of this 1953 MG 1600.

It's beautiful.

And it turns out that I love driving a classic car.

And he loves driving a blonde round in one with the hood down.

So as the old adage goes, you can't choose your family. But you can certainly choose your flatmates, steal their friends and share their car seat.

* Anita, you are obviously exempt from this comparison.

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