Millions upon millions of people live and breathe and work and play amidst the dusty streets and sprawling downtown suburbs of Dhaka. It’s one of the largest cities on the Indian Sub-continent, where such a cocktail of cultural and historical influences converge there’s a typhoon of activity and action so memorable it’s rarely, if ever, forgotten.
The central metropolitan districts range from high-class affluence, to raw and rugged pictures of struggling humanity, where luxury hotels rub shoulders with shoestring bedsits and fine-dining bistros cluster on the edges of tin-roofed shantytowns. The mud-red Buriganga River flows slowly by, overlooking the chaotic Sadarghat Port; an area as ceaselessly busy as the streams of colourful rickshaws that run through the central city streets just to the north.
If you’re after a typical sightseeing itinerary from your Dhaka tour guide, then consider hitting the ‘must see’ Mughal complexes of the Old Town, along with the historical colonial palaces and trading posts left over by the British East India Company and other European imperial powers. But, if it’s just people watching and cultural immersion you’re after, then you’ve come to the right place, because this seething metropolis is the kingpin of national art and performance, with yearly folk festivals (like the Sonargaon) and city-wide celebrations, like the Pohela Baishakh of the Bengali New Year.