To Bangladesh (part 2)

Yup, I'm in Bangladesh for about 4 days by now. So this post I'm going to talk about some first impressions and some observations of this place:

1. Much like india
Yep, first thought in my mind as I got out of the airport, is that this is so much like India. Well not surprising, being a neighbor of India. Basically dusty, polluted, constructions going on everywhere, unstable power supplies, streets filled with auto (motorized) rickshaws (normally called auto in India)... etc. Of course there are slight differences, like the autos here are called CNGs (because of the fuel they use - compressed natural gas), and you see a lot of manual rickshaws on the road (don't see that in Bangalore).

2. Loose dress code
Well being a pretty poor country, it doesn't come as a surprise dress codes are not enforced much. It is not uncommon to see white collars (I presume, lower ranking ones) wearing sandals and jeans to office.

3. Crazy traffic
If you think KL traffic is bad, wait till you see the traffic here. Roads are chaotic, everyone trying to squeeze their way through, CNGs travelling in opposite direction (ok sometimes cars too, saw one just today). And according to colleagues here, due to bad planning, most main roads cut through the city, causing massive jam  at peak hours. For example, even travelling in short distance, say 3-5km, would take 1 hour at times (ok, this is similar to Jakarta I guess). Oh before I forget, they always honks, all the time... just like India. I think they would not dare to drive if their car horns are broken.

4. Cars with bull bars
Bull bars are also commonly known as nudge bar or kangaroo bar. And you read it right, cars. Somehow they seemed to be obsessed with installing bull bars on cars, front and back. You can see some pictures of them in FB once I uploaded them. Well I guess this is kind of related to 3. The cars probably nudges and bullies the rickshaws out of the way on the road. But so far I have not witnessed it. It's either that, or they want to make sure that in case of any small accidents, the car won't get damaged.

5. Expensive
You'd be surprised that despite being a poor country, some things are pretty expensive. Hotel, transport, food etc are not cheap. The only thing that's cheap is mobile prepaid starter pack. :P Another thing related to this is a lot of people try to get money from you. In a way I guess it's not very surprising for travelers/tourists. Because I definitely stick out like a sore thumb. Beggars goes around on the streets knocking on car windows, hotel staffs trying all sorts of way to earn money from you (one fella even kept trying to pimp girls to me).

6. Lift etiquette
One observation that I find kind of interesting is their lift (elevator) etiquette. People actually queued up for lifts. I mean, who does that? Not Malaysians, not foreigners (they would give way, but not queue). Maybe it only happen in corporate offices, that I'm not too sure. Also, nobody bothers about pressing the close button of lifts. I mean, I do that a lot, just to save a few seconds instead of waiting for the door to auto close. I believe most Malaysians do that. But here, no. They just happily wait for the door to auto close.

So there you go, some of my observations about Bangladesh.


Edit:
I forgot to add one more:
7. Power connectors
This is the first place I go that almost every wall socket and power connectors I've seen are universal plugs. Only very rarely I see India plugs around. Makes it very convenient for foreign plug devices to work here. Very good idea actually.