Sonargaon Park

I have been quite negligent lately in keeping our blog up-to-date...well, I'm back, and will definitely be better about keeping everyone up to date on our daily adventures in Bangladesh.

A couple of weekends ago, Mark, Clara and I, along with some friends we have met through the baby club took a day-trip to THE local park. We decided to hire a driver to get us to the park, which is about 25km southeast of the city, because we wanted it to be a relaxing, enjoyable day. It seems extravagant by Canadian standards to have a driver, but the traffic is chaotic, and we weren't certain of the route to the park.

After about an hour and a half of Sakir's skillful driving, we arrived at what, we presumed, was the park entrance. There was a line up of cars, buses & rickshaws jockeying for position to get into the park to try to find parking. At that point we parked the cars on the side of the road, and our driver looked after them while we spent the day in the park.

Our friends followed us to the park in their car, and parked directly behind us. While the group of us were getting organized, a group of about 20 Bangladeshis gathered around us to watch the foreigners. It felt quite awkward to be loading up so much STUFF for just one day in the park!

Sakir enquired of the group surrounding us, and found a guide for the day to show us the historic sites. Our young guide was a very helpful, friendly boy, and most skilled at 'shooing' the crowds away when we found a (relatively) quiet place to have our picnic lunch.















I am almost embarassed to post that picture. As soon as we had unpacked our lunch, I felt guilty about showing off all of our expensive, Western food. I wondered what the boy thought when he looked at us - extravagant, wealthy foreigners? or cash-cows that he would put up with for the day? or just normal people enjoying a day in the park? Regardless, I packed up some of the food so we would look QUITE as ostentatious.

Sonargaon was the Bangladesh's first capital. Except for several mosques, a bridge, a few tombs and stupas (Buddhist monuments), and some indistinguishable mounds scattered around the area, nothing remains of the original city. The Archeological branch of the government has done precious little to preserve this site, and I read that some of the poorer occupants sell the bricks from these run-down heritage sites to be broken into gravel for construction work.
















We had a lovely day wandering around the park. It was great just to get out of the city, see some new sites and some greenery!

At the end of the day we wandered back to the cars, which were still there thanks to Sakir! We headed home feeling tired from the heat, but also very happy to have made the effort to see some of the local sites.