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Hi, I've been living in Dhaka for the last 4 years. The first two years I lived a pretty cocooned life in the microcosm called Bashundhara R/A. Still the 'stares' never left me alone. I used to wonder, is it my jeans and tees? One day when I was crossing the road with my colleague, a car stopped right in front of us, the driver rolled the window glass down, gave me a hard stare for about half a minute or so and then went on. I was so shocked that I asked my colleague, 'don't your people get to see women on the street? Why do I get such stares?' He cheekily replied, 'well they do, but not women like you who have their 'headlamps' on!' I did not go on to clarify further as I could vaguely understand what he was getting at. On those early days I did not use to wrap myself with a scarf as is a regular practice here, hence the stares. But at least I was blessed with remarkable colleagues who were totally non-judgemental, an eclectic bunch actually. Later when I shifted to another ad agency whose office is located in the crowded Mohakhali region, the stares became harder. Though by then I started using scarves regularly, still my short cropped hair and the recently obtained red streak manages to garner enough attention on the street, much to my dismay. I'd like to finish my story with a funny anecdote. In Bashundhara the first flat where I stayed got burgled. When the local police came to investigate the matter, my landlady who just came down from Canada was also present. When the police asked me whether any of my clothing got stolen, she promptly quipped before I could open my mouth, 'oh the kind of clothes she wears, nobody's going to touch them!'

My experience in BD this time (third time I am here) is so terrible. People tried to charge me extra money. I bought 2 small green capsicum, 1 yellow capsicum big size, 2 cauliflowers (small size), 1 bitter gourd, 200g of long bean and they charged me totally 550tk.

Other time the rishaw tried to charge me 100 tk for 1.5km (usually 20tk)

I don't have good experience this time in Bangladesh, especially Dhaka. All of my beauty about Bangladesh is just gone

The e-commerce in Bangladesh sucked as well. I ordered some products from Chaldal.com, advanced payment via Paypal, they didn't delivery all of stuff but they didn't update to me about that until I contacted them. They promised to send the product the day after that but no delivery. I again contacted them and they said sorry for that and promised refund my money via Paypal within 5 business day. Damn as always, they don't refund the money until now (more than 1 month). The special thing about chaldal.com is timing. They always delivery your stuff lately (even they put the 5 hours time frame). Just full of disappointed!!!

The problem here is not about money, it's about the way people is and the honesty