A Tour of Old Dhaka

On our last Friday in Bangladesh, we decided we needed to go see Old Dhaka – the tiny warren of streets that eventually gave birth to this sprawling city of 15 million. Hossain and Mithu, two of the drivers who work for the World Bank, said that they would be happy to serve as our drivers, tour guides and personal security detail. That sounded a lot more fun than haggling with some commercial tour operator, so we took them up on their offer.

Since we went down on a Friday morning, traffic was light and many businesses were closed. Still, there was plenty to see and do (and smell). We ran across these guys butchering sea turtles on the street in the Hindu district.


Old Dhaka also features a few nice older buildings. Some, like Ahsan Manzil (also called “the Pink Palace”), which was built as the personal home of Dhaka’s wealthiest landowner in the late 1800s, are no longer used, but others from the period are still serving as office buildings, shops, or even apartment houses.




One of the most interesting places in this part of Dhaka is the Armenian Church. The church was built in 1781 as the expansion of a chapel from the late 17th century. The Armenians had come as traders to this part of the world for centuries. Finally a Moghul emperor in the 1600s invited them to build their own settlements in Bengal ... and thus they built a church. The caretaker of the church, Mr. Martin, showed us around. He was very friendly, very knowledgeable, and very lonely. There are only 10 families in the church now, and it’s clear the community is slowly dying.

We headed down to the waterfront to see the produce being brought in to feed the metropolis of Dhaka. (Watermelon is in season now.) Patrick was tempted to get a shave and a haircut, but eventually decided against it.




One of our last stops was to visit Mithu’s family and see his new baby daughter, who is only 18 days old. He is an extremely proud father.


Mithu and Hossain gave us a wonderful tour of Old Dhaka. It seems both strange and fitting that we waited almost two years to do this tour, right before our departure. Now that we’re leaving Bangladesh, we have become more open to seeing it with a positive attitude. It was a good way to spend our last Friday here.