My recent visit to Bangladesh
Mr. Lacy, On e-mail
The purpose of this letter is to provide a brief overview of my latest visit to Bangladesh. My wife who was born in Bangladesh, but is a US citizen now, and I arrived on November 04, 2005 at Dhaka airport approximately at 0900 hours and the adventure began. I say adventure, because one never knows what problems one will have to experience just to leave the airport. After going through customs, we proceeded to the baggage area. As luck would have it, I was missing one piece of my luggage. So we go over to the lost luggage area to file a report. The individual that tried to assist us appeared to be very inexperienced in filling out the required forms; however from looking around at all the lost luggage, one would get the impression that he would be very experienced. For approximately 28 minutes, he continued to try to type in the information on what appeared to be a first generation computer. Finally, I asked if there was a supervisor available and reluctantly, he called his supervisor. The supervisor arrived talking on his cell phone to one of his family members. He continued to talk for approximately 20 more minutes. When he finally found time to assist, he took our information and said we would be contacted when to come and get the luggage when it arrived. This upset me because it has been my experience as a courtesy to the traveller, once the bag came in, the airlines brought the bag to my place of residence. Not in BANGLADESH! Next we had to clear customs. As we approached the customs checkpoint, I got the feeling that I was an International Terrorist the way I was approached by no less than four or five customs officers. During their questioning, they asked about electronics and I stated that I had a 14" TV that I was bringing to my father-in-law as a gift that we had purchased in Dubai in the Duty Free Store. We even showed them the receipt but we were told that we had to pay a customs fee. When I started to question them, more customs officers arrived. Reluctantly, we paid the customs fee and were about to leave when I noticed a Bengali traveller approaching the same checkpoint that I had confronted and he had a customs officer with him. I assumed he would experience the same type of reception that I received because he had a 27" TV on his cart; however, he just kept going by the checkpoint, escorted by the customs officer all the way to the exit. When I inquired as to why this individual was not required to pay, I was quickly dismissed and later I learned that this individual was a relative of one of the customs officers. I inquired about this type of treatment and was told that it is very common. After four days, we learned that the bag had arrived. After an hour drive by taxi to the airport, another adventure began because it was the day before SAARC summit and airport people wanted to make a great show on the earth that they had a strong security. If my brother-in-law had not been with me, we would not have been let through the gates of the airport. Given that he is an officer, he was able to get us up to the airport. Once at the airport, it took another thirty to forty minutes to locate the bag. We were unable to locate a taxi at the airport entrance so we had to walk to the front gate where my brother-in-law was able to get a taxi. Once we arrived home, my wife and I had a wonderful time visiting family and making new friends and rekindling old friendships from a previous visit. Finally after a week, after saying good-bye to our family, we headed for the airport and on the way, we were stopped by the traffic police twice and they asked for "Tea Money". Our driver being a quick thinker stated that we were foreigners and we were sent on our way without paying the bribe. We arrived at the airport and I felt that we were finally safe from anymore request for "Tea Money"; however, once through the gates, we were stopped once more and asked for "Tea Money". The driver once again stated he was carrying foreigners and we were allowed to pass without a bribe. In closing I would like to state that Bangladesh is a beautiful country with wonderful people. If the country could eliminate all the corruption (Tea Money), and promote tourism, the country could have a booming business.
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