I had some time to update my days thus far so I will continue with my Bangladesh visit.
Day 7:
Today we were off to Sylhet. Mahah's father works for HRC which is a company which deals with all sorts of things rom lighting to tea. We were visiting the HRC tea gardens today. IT was a long ride to Sylhet. We took two cars today. Sifuel cha cha drove me, Becca, and Chris along with our luggage in the big car, and Mahah's father's company's driver drove Paolina and Mahah. We arrived at Sylhet at 2:10pm. We were extremely surprised at what was about to come. We drive through these villages and crops, but nothing seems to be all that great. Then we drive up this little windy pathway, and see this gorgeous white bungalow. We were like....whoa! is this where we're staying???? It was so awesome! We get in there and there are servants or people there to help us with our bags. They also brought out glasses of fresh watermelon juice for us. We then met the owner of the tea gardens who was very nice. We were to stay at the bungalow by ourselves. We looked at our rooms and the view, and it was absolutely stunning.
Later we went out to the rooftop and explored a bit. The view was amazing! Then the tractor arrived. We were to explore the tea gardens. We saw rubber trees as well as the tea-making factory. We also did a bit of tea=tasting. It was an unforgettable experience, and the tractor ride was so much fun!! It was a bit scary, but exhilerating. We then arrived at our bungalow and "uncle", the owner of the tea gardens told us that there was to be a bunch of village people and a performance for us. We were really excited! Then we went back to our rooms.
He had mentioned to us earlier something about elephants, and he asked us whether or not we had ridden any before. Anyways, we got freshened up and the servant people knocked on our door and told us "The elephants have arrived!" We were really shocked and in absolute disbelief. We looked outside and didn't see any elephants. We looked in the distance and at the bottom of the hill and to our surprise we saw 2 sillouttes of elephants!!! REAL elephants! They came up to the house and the servants brought out chairs for us to watch the elephants! Mahah fed them bananas...It was amazing.
Then an hour later (after our cooks prepared some "snacks" for us), the village dancers came to perform for us! I totally participated. It was a very memorable experience for us all. Then I tried betle leaf, and a group of people gathered with us in front of the house to just talk. The village doctor came and some of uncle's friends came too. It was pretty relaxed!
Then we pulled an all-nighter, just talking and bonding because I am not going to spend my fall semester at Bryant. I will be in Shanghai, and Chris is going to Beijing and Becca is going to England.
Day 8:
We saw the rubber-making process and drove a long way back to Dhaka.
That night we wore our sarees and Chris his punjabi and we went to the wedding reception. IT was really crowded and we stayed a short while. That was a really fast reception (the fastest I had ever been to)
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