We were the only visitors apart from a few local people

My sister and I traveled on the Glories of Bangladesh 14 day trip in November 2019. There were two other people in the group. The trip was well planned and our guide, Faisal, was wonderful. He spoke excellent English and was very good at sharing his knowledge of the local areas, historic sights, etc with us.

We told him that we loved to try the local food and he took us to excellent local restaurants and the best of the local stalls for delicious snacks. Faisal also took us to shop for souvenirs and for evening trips around the markets in rickshaws – great fun.

The description of the tour provided by Nijhoom was very accurate – all the hotels were good, better than I had expected to be honest, and the trains were comfortable too. Our visit coincided with a cyclone and the boats to Barisal weren’t allowed to leave port but we were very impressed by how efficiently Faisal and his colleagues dealt with the problem by quickly sorting tickets for us to go to Khulna by train instead.

Favourite bits? Difficult to say though the Sundarbans were particularly wonderful, so beautiful and calm. The boat was basic but very clean with good sheets and towels. The food cooked up by Ali in his galley was the best! The other crew members were very friendly and helpful – carrying our gear as we waded out round the rocks and trees to make our way along the beach (the paths being closed by cyclone debris) and our guide was great. We didn’t see a tiger but did see paw prints in two different places.

The countryside is fabulous – extraordinarily green and fertile and reflected in the numerous lakes, ponds rivers which are everywhere. The various historic sites were very impressive – all the more so because we were the only visitors apart from a few local people. Dhaka traffic is really awful but all the tuk-tuks run on Compressed Natural Gas so the air pollution is relatively low.

Complaints – none at all. Even the mosquitoes weren’t much of a problem for us.

Lots of people are concerned about the security situation in Bangladesh – but we felt really safe the whole time both in regard to personal crime and more serious security issues. There were guards at stations/museums etc but no sense of impending danger. The people are exceptionally friendly and curious and keen to take photos/selfies with us as they see so few visitors to the country.