- Saturday 26th December 2015
TRAVEL NOTE
The evening of Christmas day my flight from London Heathrow to Sylhet flew direct. I flew Biman air which doesn't have the best track record in punctuality but what happened next I wasn't even expecting. I assumed being Christmas day and a low capacity we should not be delayed but how wrong was I?.
First a illegal immigrant who was sent home on our flight. The handover procedure took a long time then another passenger had to be escorted off our plane for security reasons that are unknown. The Bangladeshi are definitely not light travelers as you can see from this photo so it took a couple of hours to remove his luggage.
I had planned my flights in this way that I would use Selhet as stopover. My flight would land in the morning and then I would take another evening flight to Dhaka. The time in the afternoon would be spent visiting the sole park in Sylhet. Well! if my flight wasn't delayed by nearly five hours then that plan was perfect but now my flight was delayed it maybe too tight to visit the park .
Instead of morning my flight landed late afternoon. I still had a chance and even if I didn't make the connection I decided I'll fly next morning as getting back to Sylhet in the future would be more difficult then getting back to Dhaka. I got my Visa on arrival. I was escorted downstairs to the bank to pay the fee. Same time I changed some currency. Then went to an office and the formalities were pretty straightforward. Once clearing immigration I went towards the exit. Having a quick look outside made it clear that there are no taxis to be seen. Rather then dealing with touts, I went back inside and spoke to an officer to call me a taxi. He went out side and within minutes found me a driver who was prepared to take me to the park and back. I asked him the price but he said pay me what you want only when I get you back in time for your flight.
We sat in his car but we couldn't lave the car park as there was a minister passing that road. In that part of the world when a minister or a high level personnel passes that area the traffic has to stop for him for a speedy and safe passage to the inconvenience of other people. We were delayed 45 minutes in the car park. Me and the driver were at this point given up hope of going to the park and making it back in time so as I was beginning to leave his car to back inside when the traffic started flowly.
My driver speeded as fast as possible to the park and got me to the park leaving me 90 minutes to enjoy the park.
Nandan Park
The evening of Christmas day my flight from London Heathrow to Sylhet flew direct. I flew Biman air which doesn't have the best track record in punctuality but what happened next I wasn't even expecting. I assumed being Christmas day and a low capacity we should not be delayed but how wrong was I?.
First a illegal immigrant who was sent home on our flight. The handover procedure took a long time then another passenger had to be escorted off our plane for security reasons that are unknown. The Bangladeshi are definitely not light travelers as you can see from this photo so it took a couple of hours to remove his luggage.
I had planned my flights in this way that I would use Selhet as stopover. My flight would land in the morning and then I would take another evening flight to Dhaka. The time in the afternoon would be spent visiting the sole park in Sylhet. Well! if my flight wasn't delayed by nearly five hours then that plan was perfect but now my flight was delayed it maybe too tight to visit the park .
Instead of morning my flight landed late afternoon. I still had a chance and even if I didn't make the connection I decided I'll fly next morning as getting back to Sylhet in the future would be more difficult then getting back to Dhaka. I got my Visa on arrival. I was escorted downstairs to the bank to pay the fee. Same time I changed some currency. Then went to an office and the formalities were pretty straightforward. Once clearing immigration I went towards the exit. Having a quick look outside made it clear that there are no taxis to be seen. Rather then dealing with touts, I went back inside and spoke to an officer to call me a taxi. He went out side and within minutes found me a driver who was prepared to take me to the park and back. I asked him the price but he said pay me what you want only when I get you back in time for your flight.
We sat in his car but we couldn't lave the car park as there was a minister passing that road. In that part of the world when a minister or a high level personnel passes that area the traffic has to stop for him for a speedy and safe passage to the inconvenience of other people. We were delayed 45 minutes in the car park. Me and the driver were at this point given up hope of going to the park and making it back in time so as I was beginning to leave his car to back inside when the traffic started flowly.
My driver speeded as fast as possible to the park and got me to the park leaving me 90 minutes to enjoy the park.
Nandan Park
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