Tourists for a Day

Out on the boat

 Our city is located along the Padma River,  so while Christa was visiting last week we decided to get out on the water a bit.  We hired a boatman to take us out for an hour or so.  It's one of the few ways we can be out in the open without being surrounded by curious on-lookers.

        

    A couple of special friends and some English students joined us for the journey.

  It wasn't the peaceful time that I had envisioned since the paddle-run boats were all out and we had to take a very noisy motor boat making conversation nearly impossible,  but the beautiful scenery and enjoyment of being with Christa and our friends made it a special time.

                                        

A special meal

     In the cities, most homes have indoor kitchens with a 2-burner gas stove, but the village way of cooking over a clay stove (mathi chulah) fed by wood or cow-dung is still favored by many women.  It comes in very handy for cooking for a crowd.    We recently attended our friend's daughter's birthday party and enjoyed a wonderful biryani meal cooked outside of their apartment in a little cooking shed. It looks like a perfect place to cook one of our favorite dishes -a Spanish paella- but sadly our modern 7-story apartment building has no cooking shed attached to it.

Changing Seasons

When we arrived in Rajshahi in March, we took walks along the sandy bed of the Padma River that runs along the southern side of the city. The size of the river had shrunk to where we couldn't even see it from the banks. We just knew it was 'somewhere out there beyond the sand.

Now,  one month into the monsoon season,  the water is back---and so are the boats.  I love the ever-changing landscape.