I chose to travel to Bangladesh in the middle of the dry season, to avoid the country’s notorious monsoon floods. The weather during the trip was great with no rain, and the sunny views were amazing all the way. However, I was surprised to find the country still covered in water just like it rained the day before. And people’s lives go hand in hand with water. I very much enjoyed seeing the views on both sides of the roads. Here’s a look at how beautiful the country is.
People’s life, always with water.
Bangladesh is a riverine country that is crossed by thousands of rivers and streams. The monsoon season lasts for almost half the year and often causes devastating floods across the country. You can know the magnitude of the floods by the fact that they even change the shape of the big rivers. Owning to the dramatic way in which the shape and width of a river can be changed by the floods, it’s difficult to plan a new bridge that would make sense in the coming years. For this reason, all bridges in the country end up being incredibly long so that they can still cross rivers whatever shape they end up in the future. During the trip, my car passed over many beautiful rivers that were flowing so slowly and were full of water.
In the river beds, you can see people making their living – fishing, and farming. Here, in the upstream River Ganges in the early morning, fishers were landing fish from the cages they had set out the night before.
Inland water view
The views you see along the river banks also reflect how Bangladesh is a riverine land. Paddy lands covered with water spread out endlessly before your eyes. The guide told me that the presence of water enables a double-cropping of rice, which supports Bangladesh’s population of 160,000,000.
As my trip unfolded and I saw endless paddy lands along the way, I got used to the views of water on both sides of the roads. I automatically assumed that I was looking at reservoirs. However, this wasn’t correct… it was actually inland fish farming.
This is how they gather fish from a fish-farming pond, selecting the ones that are mature enough to be shipped to to market! The guide told me that the farming is stable in the dry season. However, they faced issued during the monsoon season, when water typically overflows from one pond and the fish being moving between different ponds!
A quiet and foggy beautiful view in the early morning.
From the early morning till noon, the land is covered in a deep fog, giving it a soft, ambiguous, and simply peaceful view.
Lastly, here is a view of a village that contains many religious buildings. Throughout the history of Bengal, various religions, such as Buddhism, Hindu and Islam, have been and gone, some of which are still believed. All of these religions contain a ritual that involves bathing or washing parts of the body before praying. It could be said that the abundance of water on the land year-round has made the local people religious and devout.
