Bangladesh Travel Guide @ TravelNotes.org

Travel Notes: Asia: Bangladesh Travel Notes

Bangladesh tourist information with details about travel to and around the country. Where to stay and what to see is made easier with insider tips and hand-selected Bangladesh links, by dedicated editors and visitors to TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel.

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Bangladesh Country Information

The People's Republic of Bangladesh is in the north-eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, known as Bengal.

Countries neighbouring Bangladesh are: India and Myanmar.

Weather in Bangladesh

View a graphical weather forecast for the week ahead in places around Bangladesh.

Chittagong Weather, Dacca Weather.

Partition of India

Following the partition of India in 1947, the area of Bangladesh became a province of Pakistan, first as East Bengal, and then, from 1955, as East Pakistan.

East Pakistan separated from Pakistan, on 16th December, 1971, to gain nationhood as Bangladesh; Bengal nation, in Begali - also translated as Country of the Bengalis.

Language

The official language of Bangladesh is Bengali, an Indo-European language with its own script derived from Sanskrit.

Urdu is the language of several hundred thousand people who emigrated from India in the late 1940s.

A number of languages similar to Burmese are also spoken around the Chittagong Hills.

Bengali Phrasebook:
Order a meal, catch an auto-rickshaw, chat with the locals, bargain for souvenirs - and do it all in Bengali.

Dhaka

The capital of Bangladesh is an ancient municipality.

Dhaka's importance grew when it was the Mughal capital of Bengal Province from 1608 to 1639 and again from 1660 to 1704.

The city declined after the capital was moved to Murshidabad in 1704.

The British took control of Dhaka in 1765, until the partition of British India in 1947. Dhaka then became the capital of the Pakistan province of East Bengal.

The city was considerably damaged during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan, before becoming the capital of newly independent Bangladesh in December.

Old City

The city's old quarter is a maze of narrow streets and crowded bazaars. It's an interesting area to lose time and shoot a roll or two of film.

Ramna is the modern town to the north of the old area and contains most of the government buildings.

There are more than 700 mosques in Dhaka and you will here the Mullah wherever you are in the city at prayer times.

Also Visit

The 17th century Lal Bagh Fort and the tomb of Pari Bibi; the wife of a governor of Bengal.

Hotels in Dhaka

Best Western La Vinci Hotel: Dhaka.
54 Kawran Bazar. Hotel Details. Hotel Rates. Add Hotel Review. View Map. Official Website: Best Western La Vinci Hotel.	The Best Western La Vinci Hotel is a three-star, luxurious business class hotel with a majestically colourful architectural design, superbly located in the heart of Dhaka's prestigious business area, the Kawran Bazaar. Standard Rates Stay at the Best Western La Vinci Hotel The Best Western La Vinci Hotel's guest rooms, conference hall, restaurant and bar and other facilities are of the highest standards; extending traditional Bangladesh and Italian personalised service through its well-trained multilingual staff. Whether for business or pleasure step into the Best Western La Vinci Hotel and feel the touch of Italian and Bangladesh hospitality.
Dhaka Sheraton Hotel: Dhaka.
1 Minto Road. Hotel Details. Hotel Rates. Add Hotel Review. Read Hotel Reviews. View Map. Official Website: Dhaka Sheraton Hotel.	The Dhaka Sheraton Hotel stands proudly as the first international five-star hotel in Bangladesh. The 272 guest rooms and suites range from convenient to deluxe, premium deluxe, and Executive Club Floor facilities with five categories of suites. Standard Rates Stay at the Dhaka Sheraton Hotel Five different restaurants allow you to savour the best of local and international cuisine in Dhaka. Located three kilometres from the downtown business district, the Dhaka Sheraton is close to the lush surrounds of Dhaka's famous Ramna Park and the Prime Minister's office and ministerial residence. Guest facilities include a fitness gym, squash court, floodlit tennis courts, driving range and outdoor pool.
Pan Pacific Sonargaon: Dhaka.
107 Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue. Hotel Details. Hotel Rates. Add Hotel Review. View Map. Official Website: Pan Pacific Sonargaon.	Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka Hotel offers exceptional five-star facilities; from first-class surroundings to world-class hospitality in true Pan Pacific style, right from the airport. Standard Rates Stay at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon The hotel's 283 luxuriously appointed rooms, including 25 magnificent suites, provide every five-star facility to make your stay truly unique. With round the clock room service, high speed broadband internet, medical facilities and laundry. There's also a Savvy Beauty and Barber Salon on the 3rd floor of the Courtyard building, while the Jharna restaurant boasts a world-class menu and 5-star service set amongst the hotel's distinctive and elegant water features.
The Westin: Dhaka.
Main Gulshan Avenue. Hotel Details. Hotel Rates. Add Hotel Review. Official Website: The Westin Dhaka.	Uniquely designed and comfortably appointed, The Westin Dhaka is a five-star hotel, conveniently located within the prime diplomatic and commercial zone of Gulshan. Standard Rates Stay at The Westin Dhaka All 235 beautiful guest rooms, including 23 suites and a Presidential Suite, feature the world-renowned Westin Heavenly Bed in addition to state-of-the-art workstations with telephones, four-fixture bathrooms, high speed Internet access, and plasma TV with satellite channels. There's also an health and fitness centre as well as numerous restaurants for that special culinary experience.

Chittagong

The best beaches in Bangladesh are south of the capital and the Ganges delta; around Chittagong.

Chittagong first became an important commercial centre under the Portuguese in the 16th century.

The British East India Company possessed it  between 1760 and 1765.

Predominantly Hindu, the area was originally a part of Arakan and later claimed by the emperor of Burma - one of the causes of the First Burmese-British War in 1824.

Ganges Delta

The Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers meet in Bangladesh to form a large delta that is subject to annual flooding; together with cyclones from the Bay of Bengal, this can be quite catastrophic.

The large alluvial deposits make Bangladesh one of the most fertile regions in the world.

The monsoon lasts from late May to mid-October.

Getting Around Bangladesh

Bangladesh by Road

Road construction is made difficult in Bangladesh by the numerous rivers and their marked seasonal fluctuation in width and depth. Bridging the major channels is too expensive, so you will be waiting a lot for ferries if you travel widely by road.

Bangladesh by Rail

There are railways in Bangladesh, but their expansion is also limited by the yearly rising of the rivers.

Bangladesh by Boat

Inland waterways carry much of the country's domestic freight and passenger traffic. The commercially operated routes are cut in half during the dry season.

Bangladesh by Air

Biman Bangladesh Airlines provides international and domestic air services. The main international airport is at Dhaka.

Sylhet

Pilgrims to this city in north-east Bangladesh, formerly known as Srihatta, usually visit the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal and the Shah Jalal Mosque.

Bengali Culture

The people of Bangladesh have cultural ties with Calcutta, where Bengali writers are often based for a while.

The best well known among them is probably the writer, artist, and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore.

Bangladesh also has a thriving film culture, similar to that of India, but no where near the size of Bollywood.

Bangladesh Tour Operators

Bangladesh Ecotours:
Eco adventures to the recently opened Hilltract regions along the Burmese border and to the unspoiled beaches and islands of the Bay of Bengal.

Discovery Bangladesh:
Located in Dhaka, Discovery Bangladesh offer a variety of package tours around Bangladesh.
5% discount to Travel Notes members.

Travel BD:
Located in Dhaka, Travel BD specialises in tours and expeditions around Bangladesh.

Hill Tracts

About Bangladesh:
The pristine hilltract regions present an image of Bangladesh rarely imagined by the casual traveller.

Meet The Mru:
The solitary, independent and peace-loving Mru people can be found in the hill tracts of south-eastern Bangladesh and western Burma - their small population split almost in half by the border.

Bangladesh Travel Guides

Books on Bangladesh Travel:
Browse Amazon's best-selling list of books on travel in Bangladesh.