Directions and Driving in Dhaka

Getting directions in Dhaka seem to center around, “you go out of the Westin, second left, by the pot hole…” or “you know DIT 2, well, it’s over near there” or “not the Nokia store but the other one. I don’t know the address.” The traffic in Dhaka is infamous. Part of this notoriety is the insane sensation of being in a life-risking video game with whizzing and weaving rickshaws, scooters, cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, pedestrians, hawkers, CNGs (green tuk tuk type things that run on some other fuel), and flatbed wheeled carts pulled by a man. Every one of those conveyances is going at a different speed. If you like to drive NY-style but with no real rules… then Dhaka is for you. Oh and the gear/stick shift is on your left because you are sitting on the right of the car and driving down the left side of the road… while playing “chicken” with the cars coming directly at you one rickshaw-length from you… I only closed my eyes once… otherwise, I kept them open. Otherwise, I would have missed the rickshaw with the family of three with the infant sleeping in her mother’s lap… rickshaw bouncing down the dirt road…