Step 1: Flag down a CNG, bargain, and cross your fingers that they understood that you want to go to the airport train station, not airport. At 6am on a Friday morning, you might have a to wait a while.
Step 2: Arrive at the airport train station, and wait eagerly in the area you think your cart will be. Surely this will be incorrect. Politely ignore the man who asks for money repeatedly but in such a comical fashion that you suspect he is on repeat mode more for his amusement than for the money.
Step 3: When a train pulls in around the time your train is supposed to leave, and the announcer calls out the name of your train and destination you are hoping to go to, assume that the train that just pulled in (the only one in the station) is in fact the right train for you. This is a false assumption.
Step 4: Because people told you that the train would only stay at the station for a few minutes, jump onto the first cart you see, and ask people to help direct you to your seat.
Step 5: Listen to the 4-6 people you show your ticket to, and tell you that you have to keep moving a few more carts up to get to your seat. Bash people with your big backpack as you attempt to squeeze past the mash of people filled in the train carts.
Step 6: 3 or 4 carts down, show your ticket to a couple more people and then listen to their advice when they say, no, your seats are a couple carts back down the other way - where you just came from.
Step 7: Show your ticket again to someone on the train, after when you've retraced your steps a few carts down (and re-pissed off the people you squeezed past again). Bear in mind that at this point the train has already been on the move for the past 10 minutes. Process the next few words a kind stranger tells you when he looks at your ticket. "You're on the wrong train".
Step 8: Ask a few other kind strangers if in fact you are on the wrong train, and surrender to your tourist badge of shame. Kind strangers explain that the next stop is not for another 2 hours, and that you'll have to then catch a train back to Dhaka and then maybe from there, you can catch another train to your destination.
Step 9: Politely answer questions from kind strangers (all this is Bangla of course), particularly when 2 men offer you their seats. I am from Canada, she is from USA. Yes, my parents are originally from Kolkata. Yes, I do look Bangladeshi. Yes, West and East Bengal was all one region at one point. Yes, I understand Bangla a bit, but I'm not good at speaking it. No, she is not Chinese. Her family is originally from Korea. You want my number?
Step 10: Hark! 10 minutes later the train starts to slow down. One kind stranger shouts to the people on the other train and you find out that the other train is on its way to Dhaka. Kind stranger tells you that the train will only stop for a few moments, and to quickly jump off and jump on to the train going in the opposite direction.
Step 11: Like Indiana Jones, gracefully dismount from your train, ask the guys on the other train to confirm its destination is Dhaka, and squeeze yourself in to the other train. Repeat Step 9.
Step 12: Once back in Dhaka, take a rickshaw to the nearest bus ticket counters, track down a carrier that has room for you. As luck would have it, the third one has seats available and it's a luxury bus line.
Step 13: 14hours later, arrive at your destination. Reward yourself with mango juice and a paratha (or soup if you're Miji).
*My next post will have stories of our lovely visit to the Hill Tracts and visits with some of the Indigenous groups in Bangladesh - one of the highlights for my time here in B'desh for sure. Stay tuned! Oh, and I promise to include photos!
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