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Notes on Dhaka – the chaotic capital of Bangladesh

March 8, 2018 By James Clark 13 Comments

Notes on Dhaka - the chaotic capital of Bangladesh

Dhaka is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and it’s famous for all the wrong reasons. It’s one of the most polluted, and it’s a regular on the lists of top 10 worst cities for traffic. It’s no surprise that it receives few visitors.

I knew that there had to be more to it than that, and as an avid urban explorer I was looking forward to visiting Dhaka to see what I could find. When I arrived I knew that I was going to love it.

First impressions

Initially it reminded me of India, which is not surprising as 71 years ago it was India. My first impression was “like India, without holy cows”. A more accurate description is that as Bengalis Dhaka has more in common with Kolkata, where Bengali is also the official language.

After checking in I went out for a walk to find something to eat and familiarise myself with the neighbourhood. I was staying near the old city, but I had no idea where I was. Once I started walking I was enticed by one side street after another.

Dhaka first walk

I soon found a tea vendor which was to become a liquid staple during my visit. A cup of hot milky sugary tea is Tk10 ($0.12).

Man pouring tea

Points of interest in Dhaka

It soon became apparent that the city was too big to wander without some sort of plan. At the hotel they didn’t have any maps, nor did I find any maps anywhere in the city. Instead they were selling bootleg copies of the Bangladesh Lonely Planet. I rarely buy the copied version as the maps are terrible, so I do not endorse this if you are reading, good people of Lonely Planet. The book was years out of date, though that doesn’t matter when you are just reading it for the things to see and do. I also like the Lonely Planet for the condensed history at the start of the book.

I picked out all the recommended points of interest in the old city area and starred these in Google Maps. From my hotel I then had a path I could follow to these main points.

My first port of call was the Mausoleum Of Three Leaders.

The Mausoleum Of Three Leaders

From there I wound my way through the streets to the Dhakeshwari Mandir, which is the primary Hindu temple in Bangladesh.

Dhakeshwari Mandir

I got to Lalbagh Fort, which was the only place I paid admission to enter. There was not much here, though the open garden space is a nice respite from the crowds. It was here that I realised that I just preferred to walk around the streets, drinking lots of tea on the way while meeting interesting people.

Lalbagh Fort

I still kept walking to each starred location to give me direction. It was the things that I saw on the way that made the trip. If there is a market I can’t help but walk through them.

Fish Market

And I find markets on the side of the road as interesting as any museum.

Lalbagh Sporting Club

I like to find beauty where ever I go, such as this old tree standing by itself.

Big tree

Or an old barber shop with hand-painted signs.

Barber

I always go to supermarkets and malls in foreign countries as well, as you never know what you will see. I stopped in at the only supermarket I found in my wanders, and saw a random live turkey for sale.

Live turkey

Old Dhaka

By now I was well and truly in deepest Old Dhaka. Here the roads become narrower and the traffic even more chaotic. The old city of Dhaka is truly a spectacle to see.

Old City

When I was booking accommodation I thought it would be wise to book in the old city to be close to the action. I couldn’t find anywhere to stay though, which turned out to be a good thing. There is no way you could stay in the old city without getting lost or losing your mind.

Old City traffic jam

My highlights map included temples, mosques, and churches. I saw that there was an Armenian Church, which there always seems to be an Armenian church in far-flung Asian trading cities. Sure enough there is a web page dedicated to Armenian churches in Asia.

Armenian Church

There are some old historic buildings here and there. Most of the interesting old buildings were covered in advertising and wiring, and too hard to get a photo. Like many other places in the world, Dhaka is struggling to save its historic buildings from developers.

Old City ruins

I thought Bangkok and Saigon had a crazy wiring game. Mere amateurs compared this this city!

Old City wires

I knew that Dhaka had bad traffic, so I was braced for the worst when I arrived. Coming from the airport was like many other cities in Asia without a public transport system, but I got to my hotel with an hour.

The traffic of legend can be found in the narrow old city streets, where the traffic slows to a crawl.

Head carrying

Dhaka is filled with old cycle rickshaws, of which there are thousands on the road. Apparently there are 1.1 million rickshaws in the city, which I would have said was unbelievable if I had not been here myself.

Rickshaw

Market goods in the old city are carried by rickshaw or balanced on top of heads.

Mitford Road traffic

If there is no traffic, people will fill in the space.

Old City crowd

I would have guessed that I could have walked faster through the market streets past the rickshaws. At times though I found myself stuck in the traffic, unable to get past the jam of rickshaws parked wheel-to-wheel on the road.

Bazar traffic

Buriganga River

From the main artery of Mitford Road I eventually escaped the maze that is the old city and made my way to the riverfront. From the bridge the river appeared to be black, which thought was a trick of the light of the midday sun. No, this is a dead river that is black from pollution.

Buriganga River

There is so much activity on the river that I could have spent a day just taking it all in. Bangladesh is a nation of rivers, and I left the riverbank realising that I won’t get to see a more natural representation of a Bangladesh river system on this trip.

Riverside

The amateur town planner

On my first trip to India in 2007 I discovered that my calling for life should have been town planning. I’m too deep into the web business now to consider going back to school, so I’m more of an amateur town planner and infrastructurist. Like in India, road works here are often left half finished. A ditch is dug on the side of the road, and then a big pile of dirt is left behind. Dust is everywhere here, and shop keepers are seen continually sweeping the front of their store in a futile attempt to keep the dust down.

Broken roads

There is rubbish everywhere you go as well, often as giant piles of refuse.

Refuse pile

This road won the award for the greatest feat of wiring I’ve ever seen.

Cross-street wiring

Refuge in a green space

To escape the urban mayhem I visited Ramna Park, the green heart of Dhaka.

Ramna Park

The park used to have a racecourse in it during the time of the British, which gives you an idea of the size of the park. There is a lake, plenty of trees, and wherever there is an open space you’ll most likely find a group playing cricket.

Ramna Park cricket

A time capsule of a city with no chain stores

One of the remarkable things about the old city is that there are no chains or famous brand shops. For better or worse I saw few international brands during my wanders. I know people bemoan Starbucks and McDonalds being everywhere, but it is usually a sign of prosperity. It turns out that that the international stores are in the newer northern suburbs of the city.

It was fascinating to walk around in the old part of a capital city and see no signs of the global retail world. I did did miss fuelling up on coffee though, and I also became acutely aware that if I needed to go to the toilet in I might be in trouble to find a convenient bathroom.

Sub Lovers

I also went to a mall in my visit, which was basically the same sort of shops that are in the old city bazaar, in a mall setting. This might the the future for traders if the powers that be decide to clear out parts of the old city. The mall had a few brands that made me look twice, such as JC Peney.

JC Peney

And a version of UNIQLO.

Not UNIQLO

Future metro

The good news for the residents of Dhaka (and for the future prosperity of the city) is that a metro system is being built. The construction of the first metro line is visible when driving from the airport, though like the new Saigon metro the progress has been slow.

Metro construction

Is Dhaka safe?

I got asked if Dhaka is safe, and got comments saying that security was too much of an issue to consider going. I’m not your father, and I’m not a security expert, so now that disclaimer is out of the way I will say that I felt completely safe in the old city. I’ve felt more unsafe in American cities than in Dhaka. That is not to say there isn’t security issues here. My take is that the incidents you read about in the news tend to be of known foreigners in foreigner enclaves. My hotel had security staff with a metal detector, and the cinema and mall I went to also had metal detectors. I never felt threatened, and there is no hotel tout or other travel scam business here because there is no tourism. I felt more overwhelmed by the amount of selfie requests I got than anything else.

Intercontinental behind bars

Where to stay in Dhaka

Seeing I was only here for a few days I figured I should stay close to Old Dhaka. I stayed at Hotel 71, which turned out to be ideal. It’s near the old city without being in it, it’s on a main road so it wasn’t a hassle for a taxi to get to from the airport, and it is near the main train station.

Hotel 71 - Dhaka

Another option is if you are flying in and out of Dhaka is to stay near the old city first, then end at Gulshan on the way out.

Gulshan is an well-to-do neighbourhood in the northern suburbs of Dhaka. It’s a residential area with shopping centres and international brands, and most of the embassies can be found here. I feel like I would of got a better representation of what living in Dhaka would be like if I went here. I even had a cafe marked out to visit, as there were literally no cafes in the old city.

Filed Under: Travel Blog Tagged With: bangladesh, dhaka, notes on

About James Clark

James Clark is the founder of Nomadic Notes. He has been a digital nomad since 2003, and Nomadic Notes features trip reports, train travel articles, and where to stay guides. He writes about transport and urban development at Future Southeast Asia. Subscribe to the weekly travel newsletter.

Comments

  1. martin says

    March 8, 2018 at 8:23 am

    Great report James – yes, i was wondering about the security aspect. Great (in my opinion) not to see maccas / starbucks etc – as you point out though, its a statement of the poverty, sadly.

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      March 10, 2018 at 3:06 am

      Thanks Martin

      Reply
  2. Simon says

    March 9, 2018 at 5:31 am

    Wow! this place looks chaotic yet fantastic. Great to learn about the security thing. Loved the blog and the pictures.

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      March 10, 2018 at 3:08 am

      Thanks Simon, glad you enjoyed.

      Reply
  3. Pierre Gosselin says

    March 9, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    Is it OK to walk around with your wife? Do foreign women have to dress with head scarf and long dress? I lived for 3 years in Saudi Arabia and it was not always fun to walk with your wife.

    Thanks for the info

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      March 10, 2018 at 3:02 am

      It wouldn’t be comparable to KSA, but I wouldn’t be able to make a judgement of a woman’s experience. I would ask Dan and Audrey as they are a married couple who visited Dhaka and Bangladesh https://uncorneredmarket.com/bangladesh-travel/

      Reply
    • Audrey says

      March 10, 2018 at 10:14 am

      Hi Pierre,
      The clothing “rules” in Bangladesh are quite minor compared with Saudi Arabia or Iran. No required headscarf or long dress. We spent five weeks traveling around the country and I usually walked around in long trousers (e.g., travel pants) and a short sleeve shirt or 3/4 sleeve shirt. Just be sure to cover shoulders and no shorts or skirts. As foreigners, you will get stared at a lot just because people are curious and don’t see many tourists. But, I didn’t have the same sort of touching or physical harassment as I had in some places in India. Hope this info helps!
      Audrey (from Uncornered Market)

      Reply
      • Pierre Gosselin says

        March 10, 2018 at 1:21 pm

        thank you

        Reply
  4. Ronnie says

    March 10, 2018 at 7:36 am

    What an amazing place Bangladesh seems to be like. Thanks for sharing even the minute details. Cheers!

    Reply
  5. Shafik says

    November 17, 2018 at 3:21 am

    Great! 100% true report. Thank you very much James.

    Reply
  6. Mike B says

    September 24, 2023 at 8:55 pm

    Astute observations, James. I lived in Dhaka for 4 years. The final two were marred by increasing violence, including the sadistic attack at Holey Bakery in summer 2016. My time in the capital was by turns fascinating and utterly frustrating. The city is like a trusted friend who consistently lets you down – or surprises you – when you least expect it. The poverty was at times soul crushing. But the Bangladeshis I had the pleasure of meeting were kind, curious, fearless souls. One man in particular helped me get back to Gulshan after I got lost wandering the crazy lanes near Star Mosque.
    No regrets!

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      September 25, 2023 at 1:06 am

      “The city is like a trusted friend who consistently lets you down – or surprises you – when you least expect it.” That’s a good way of putting it.

      Reply
  7. Nasrin Nahar says

    October 3, 2023 at 4:52 pm

    Dhaka is struggling to save its historic buildings from developers.My first port of call was the Mausoleum Of Three Leaders.To escape the urban mayhem I visited Ramna Park, the green heart of Dhaka.

    Reply

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Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

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