Bangladesh unfolded.....

There were so many firsts in my life during my recent visit to Bangladesh - a nation where people know how to welcome their guests and make them feel at home.

Starting from immigration and crossing the border, to our stay in Jessore district - each incident left some memory to cherish for life.

This was the first time I crossed the border and entered a foreign country, walking.

We arrived at Benapole - the border - in our car from Kolkata (84km) where an agent, who was supposed to ease the immigration formalities - received us. Whilst we sipped tea at his shop, our passports got stamped and we crossed the borders without any hassle.

On the other side of the border (in Bangladesh) a Toyota mini bus was waiting for us with its engine and air conditioner on. We didn't even realise when our passports got the immigration stamps done.

The journey started....

We were taken to the government guest house for lunch. A neat and clean place, including the washrooms (unlike government guest houses, at least in Uttar Pradesh).

As we entered the dining hall, we found irresistible culinary temptations waiting for us - the dining table was laid with a good number of mouthwatering dishes.

This was my close encounter with the Bengali cuisine and it turned into love at first sight. I binged for a change and longed for more. But this was only the beginning as afterwards each meal out-passed the previous. For me it was difficult to decide which dish I liked more or which meal I enjoyed more.

After the day-long work we were driven to our hotel Park Palace in Jessore. The hotel appeared shady from outside but as I entered the room, I had to change my opinion. Big clean rooms with all facilities and swanky lifts ensured that better times were ahead.

Bangladesh seemed to be strongly influenced by China. The roads are full of smart Chinese auto rickshaws. The shops are full of variety of stuff from China. The height - Channel V was in Chinese and all English movie channels gave subtitles in Chinese. What topped everything else was their cold drink called Mojo!

Small place yet all imported cars from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Volvo etc could be seen on the road. However, the trucks or lorries are either the old English Bedford or our very own Tata, which get modified immediately after they enter the country.

A country so green and so full of water reservoirs is full of fruit trees - such as Jackfruit (Kathal), Taad (a variety of palm), Batabi Lembu (a huge lemon), Jamrule (never seen that fruit before), Date Palm (Khajoor), Coconut Palm and many others. Strange is that all these fruit are taken as fruit even Jackfruit, Taad and Batabi Lembu.

During our visit we also met a few government officers and strangely enough we found them quite forthright. They neither tried to dissuade us by saying they don't have time nor they tried to paint a rosy picture of the problems around them.

It was a short visit and soon it was time for us to say good bye to our hosts.

We took a local airline United Airways to fly from Jessore to Dhaka - the capital of Bangladesh. We were supposed to walk up to the aircraft - identify our luggage on way before boarding the aircraft. A small aircraft - sitting inside I could see its wheels going in and out at the time of take off and landing - again a first!

We arrived at Dhaka - quite neat airport but probably one of the very few airports anywhere in the world, to have Azaan on loud speakers inside the airport.

Over all it was an enthralling experience, which inspired me to visit the country at least once again with the eye of a tourist and find out more ways, which make it an interesting and unique nation.