We started the morning at 5AM again, and headed back out onto the rowboat for a very similar experience as the one the morning before. The only difference was that this time we saw a monkey, and were all a lot more tired. After returning to the boat we set sail for Khulna.
It was a very relaxing day, filled with reading, talking, cards and gazing at the water.
After eating a quick dinner as we arrived in Khulna my original group had to hurry and leave on a speed boat to catch our overnight train that would be taking us back to Dhaka. As we walked through the train station and were followed by an assortment of old women and children begging for taka, we all knew that we were back in Bangladesh.
The train was slightly better than I expected and each room consisted of 2 bunk beds. We all spent a few hours playing cards. At one point we were joined by a little kid who wanted to show off his ability to count to 20 in English, and we tried to use our very limited Bangla but the conversation went nowhere. He was totally adorable, and it made me really happy to be around a little kid who could enjoy his childhood for once.
The train arrived in Dhaka at 6AM, and I was grateful that I had had pretty good nights sleep all things considered. Unfortunately we had told our driver the wrong train station (we had been confused the night before) so we had a 45 minute wait at the entrance of the station. By this time there were 5 of us left, and we drew a lot of attention. Mainly from the ever present street children and old women (who sometimes are holding babies). Every once in awhile a guard would come by and whack the kids with his stick (not too hard) and tell them to leave us alone. (This sounds completely terrible and it is, but it is hard to explain how somehow this just doesn't phase me anymore.) One of the older kids (who was about 12 or so) was clearly the ring leader and would tell the kids not to get to close to us. Occasionally another man (I never figured out who he was) would chase this boy and try to punch him in the back and the kid would laugh and run away then come back again. An old woman unsuccessful in her first attempt to get money from us came back after 10 minutes holding a little girl hoping this would work. It was all very fascinating and terrible. Finally Syed arrived and we headed back to the apartment. I was glad to be back in the comfort of the apartment, but incredibly overwhelmed about returning to one of the craziest places in the world after spending a weekend in one of the most serene.
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