Tuesday 1 November 2011

Contemplating the problems of a third world hellhole Part 2


Let's make this short; I have Game of Thrones to get back to. And then eventually, studying to do.

There are several reasons as to why traveling across road in Bangladesh will get you killed more often than having an elephant drop a piano on you, the most prominent being that elephants do not usually drop pianos on people. And then there are the more obvious reasons such as ill maintenance, corruption (the third world favourite), religion, bad weather, drugs, rampaging mon, Burmese streakers (Myanmar-ese? Mayonaise?), religion, capitalism, Pizza Hut, women driving, religion and our favourite, stupidity.

Highly improbable scenario


Highly fucking ridiculous scenario


Highly humorous but still fucking near impossible scenario

Bangladesh is a country full of shitty roads. Where a natural absence of roads would provide a better route, roads are built halfway and then abandoned due to a mysterious lack of funds while a not-so-slick politician moonwalks away with a significantly fatter wallet or purse.

With roads as shitty as ours and with population as dense (in both senses; stupid and high in number) as ours … you really don’t get anywhere. We can’t handle the traffic problems like the population by piling cars on top of each other because let’s face it, that would just look weird right? So with no chance of us driving, we don’t really get any drivers in Bangladesh. But however if you still drive a car in Bangladesh (against what nature intended) you have to be patient. If you aren’t, you will have to partake in a swearing match with a nearby rickshaw puller which you are almost guaranteed to lose. But the few drivers we have can be divided into two categories; raving loonies and incredibly skilled people who probably should earn more but don't thus sliding further into poverty.

Most ‘drivers’ here do not have driving licenses. About 80% of those people drive 20 ton cargo trucks carrying anything from cows to cadavers. Match that with broken down roads and mysteriously high blood alcohol levels and well, you get the picture. We do have people to fix these problems. We are told that we have a Road Minister to deal with shit. We also have a Communications Minister who builds bridges while stuffing his pockets with cash stolen from the budget while claiming Wikileaks lies about him and that he is a "proven honest man". Both of the officials mentioned are dumber than a holiday in the Horn of Africa.

A lot of these traffic problems can be attributed to over-centralisation of the capital, Dhaka (read: the shithole where That Guy lives). Dhaka is pretty much the only city in Bangladesh according to the rule that a city is a town which has more than 3 decent ice cream places. The rest of the country is grassland, rivers, flooded plains, villages, homeless people and other people who have nothing better to do than stand on the side of the road. Everything is concentrated in Dhaka. Factories, industry, commerce, education, sluts without AIDS, people that run you in with a knife and then forget to take your money, proper healthcare. All that shit is in the capital and you have to travel the already perilous roads to use them.

Hell, even the Navy headquarters are in Dhaka despite there not being a water body that can be sailed by Navy battleships anywhere near Dhaka. We also have the Army headquarters smack in the middle of the city. Why? Because they can bully the government into letting them take a fucking huge piece of land in the city, forcing traffic to move around it causing yet more traffic jams. Motherfuckers. Why would we need the Army in Dhaka anyway? If someone's attacking it'll be near the border, jackasses. That reminds me, the Border Guards also have a giant piece of land in the city. Right near my house. Because land is in abundance in our country.


Now Bad Ideas has to add something to the post other than a few extra words here and there. I’m the one who makes the pictures you ass! Anyways, since I’m not so knowledgeable about Bangladesh, I’ll write about where I live, God’s magical fictional country Pakiland. Okay, I’m getting this content from straight from the Paki’s mouth. Women cannot fornicate in this country, otherwise its 100 lashes for them, which is pretty much as the same as a death sentence (or half-death sentence), just more fucking painful. Neither can men (fornicate, that is) but hey, with all the chauvinistic bastards in parliament they’ll find a way to free them. Fornicate sounds like something you would do to goats … yeah, I’ll use a different word next time.


You can have up to 4 wives here. “It’s the law,” he says. So because of this influenced by their fairy-tale-like law people often abduct women with marriage proposal-advertisements. This is one of the only countries where every ‘Why aren’t you in the kitchen?’ joke comes true, at least once every day. Worse on the list would be Saudi, Iran and Afghanistan. We tackled Saudi previously and Afghanistan would be too easy right? But we will probably get to it, eventually, maybe.


Now, if you excuse me (That Guy), I have to go sit in crippling traffic for a few hours in search of ice cream.


10 comments:

  1. I was in a cab driven by a man from Bangladesh a few days ago, when I told him I was going to India soon he said I should visit there as it is "very very lovely country".
    Somehow I knew he was lying.

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  2. This is what made all that ranting worth it. Convincing someone that India is a shithole. Thank you. I'm tearing up.

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  3. What I don't get is that if lots of guys have 4 wives then, if there's the same number of guys and gils, then lots of guys have 0 wives. Don't they get pissed off? Can't see that really working myself.

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  4. They are a generally pissed off race, if you haven't noticed. According to their law, both man AND woman(or women) must agree before a polygamous marriage can take place. So 4 wives scenario happens where girls are either abducted or in the rural areas where women are little more than possessions. Some do end up without women. They choose the life devoted to God and molest little children as is His will.

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  5. @Greg - Dude, it's Pakistan. Nothing works there.

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  6. Oh good Lord the traffic in Bangladesh is absolutely atrocious. (Warning in advance this may just become a long ass rant to add to your own long ass rant).

    We went over this Summer since GCSEs and A-Levels and shit mean I haven't been back for a couple of years, and though we spent most of our time in Dhaka, when we went to the village to see my grandparents on my dad's side... I don't know if you've seen them but there are now these NEW vehicles transporting BRICKS which stop in the MIDDLE OF THE NARROW ASS ROAD so that the guys on it can throw bricks in piles into their houses. Not only do they block up the entire road so nobody can get past, they also further break the already shitty roads (because people steal bricks to use as footrests for their hole-in-the-ground toilets) with their MASSIVE tyres.

    I genuinely love Bangladesh (we're pretty rich... if you have money in Bangladesh, I've noticed nothing's really an issue. However, I'm not so much of a snob that I don't feel sorry for and consequently end up giving away all my money to those poor, injured kids who come up to the car window and stroke it with their arm stump) but it rained for about 2 hours one day while we were there and the TINY BIT OF RESULTING FLOOD meant it took us HALF AN HOUR to get round the Mirpur-10 roundabout (gulchokor mate ;D). The only time traffic flows smoothly around that thing is when the crazy naked guy is directing everything...

    Basically, corruption is abundant and I don't see if there's really any hope of sorting that out- ghush khawa is most rife amongst those who SHOULD be sorting everything out (lawyers, judges, police, GOVERNMENT) and traffic management as well as public transport is shit.

    But for some reason I still literally cannot wait to go back next Summer...

    Yeah. That was long. Have fun reading all of it. ;)

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  7. Corruption, overpopulation, poverty, illiteracy, it's a huge vicious cycle of problems, each needing another to be fixed for itself to be fixed. It'll take a long time, and in my view, a lot of bloodshed to get this country on track.

    But back to traffic. I know what you're talking about. I've stopped even thinking about going out of Dhaka. Shit's not worth it. Hell it's not worth going around inside Dhaka. It takes me 1 hour if I take the car to go to work, Dhanmondi to Farmgate. Road of max 30 minutes.

    Mirpur is horribly planned. I was going to say you're better off walking but then I realized that Mirpur's sidewalks are among the filthiest in Dhaka.

    Have fun next summer.

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  8. So, so true. And when one looks as though it's on the road to being fixed, another one's circling the drain into disaster (like that guy who came in during the caretaker government and totally fixed all the traffic problems but ended up being little short of a dictator. Not exactly a positive. Yeah, and it's not even as though the current morons dying would help anything since it's all nepotistic and the battle will just go down to their sons :/

    HAHHH! Dhanmondi is just plain ridiculous. We tried heading back in the car one time when that military school or something got out for the day... Also, you know that giant plane in the middle of a roundabout? Yeah. Traffic there is ridiculous, especially during "Rickshaw Hour" when everyday at the same time, there is inexplicably a sudden influx of rickshaws down there. -_-

    Also, I don't know if you've ever tried Bailey Road when Viqarun Nisa science students are let out in the afternoon.

    Yeah. You could quite literally walk faster pretty much anywhere. Question is, would you WANT to? :')

    Also, the men hanging round Mirpur are disgusting- I don't necessarily mean physically, it's just their behaviour. A woman can go past in a burkha and get catcalls and wolf-whistles. It's repulsive enough to make me want to vomit.

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  9. You remind of my friend from my primary school Noah, he was weird and slightly perverted. No offence xx

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  10. I haven't replied in so long mainly because I have no idea what the word "nepotistic" means and am too lazy to look it up.

    A few weeks ago, we got stuck in the weird part of the Bashundhara mall. The weird part being the part with the shops that sell burkhas and lingeries and bizarre chimerical creations consisting of both. We saw a religious bearded dude look up a burkha wearing mannequin.

    But back to the point. Traffic here is unreasonably bad. There is no reason for anybody to ever go anywhere in this city. In fact, there is no reason anyone should ever come to this city. But then, if the city was ever completely empty, it would solve the traffic problem. Yes.

    @arnisays - We're weird and slightly perverted. It is fact. I can't be offended by fact. Where is Noah?

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