Sarees and more Surprises!

Sleep has still been a bit hard to manage. Someone said you need one day for ea h out of jet lag. At this point I'll be home! But after a few solid hours and a nice breakfast we set out to an area south of Dhaka but still on the Buriganga. This was a small village Devrai, that specials in textile production for sarees and scarves. The meticulous attention to detail is incredible. Weaving silk threads into the cotton to create these beautiful patterns. As you might image much of this has been automated, so the hand looms are few and far between.

(The prices were incredible but I just couldn't justify the purchase. And im running out of wall space.)

Then back to the bus and even a bit further south to Pandan, which was an original seat of power before Dhaka. We stopped at a large hotel for another nice lunch. And then we made our way to restored palace and museum. The detail was quite beautiful including the use of what appeared to broken ceramics set into a mosaic pattern.

The museum had a few nice pieces but were once again the center of attention.

It took quite a while to navigate the traffic and get back to the hotel. It's funny how peaceful the little villages seemed in compression. While I was t able to grab any photos from the bus, there is quite a lot of graffiti around the university in support of the new government. In a nutshell the old government put forward a plan to give priority of jobs to veterans and their families and heirs which did not sit well with the younger student population.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we were fed a morsel of info, we would be departing Dhaka at 545am on Monday. So it was a quick bit of repacking, a short nap and off to dinner at a nice rooftop restaurant. A much larger variety of vegetarian and fried foods.

And then the big reveal - we would be headed to Bhutan! Just a one hour flight from Dhaka and our destination for the remainder of the trip.

It turns out, the original destination was Bolivia but the political unrest there made the change necessary. And all the clues about 'licking walls' and 'jumping around to dance' along with the early arrival to 'acclimate' were based on Bolivia. Although there is quite a bit of similarity which was why I suspected a Himalayan country all along. But this was a big surprise in the end. Well done Derek! (Ps: Derek has not been here either)

Our local guides then surprised us with some lovely gifts including little bicycle rickshaw models. It was very thoughtful and just goes to prove how happy they were to have us visit them.

For our final stop- even with the early wake up - a few of us wanted to check out the cocktail bar near the hotel. It was interesting to say the least. Dark, smoky, just a tad shady. Table service consisted of a shot of gin, a can of tonic and an ice bucket. A bit of a throw back to colonial times perhaps. The drink was about $5USD. And it was one and done.

So we are at the gate waiting on the flight to Paro. Our first destination is the capital city of Thimphu. The rest of the details are a surprise!