Welcome to Dhaka,
the world's most crowded and craziest city,
and in this video I'm going to show you some of the coolest spots in the city's old town.
Okay, so quick life update.
I've been back in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which is my home, for the last two weeks.
I came here from Hawaii on a 53 hour trip, which involved..
trouble, as usual between passengers and immigration officers..
And then my taxi engine lighting up on fire on the way to my home.
But it was all worth it, because in the end,
I got to go home a week earlier than my family expected.
I'm here, about to surprise my mom and my sister..
But now it's time to film.
After filming around the world and showing you guys a bunch of different cities
from all over for the last couple of years,
I'm pretty excited today to show you the city where I grew up.
Joining me in this video is my nephew, Musa.
He used to be really cute and cuddly when he was little,
but now he's taller than me, I'm not sure how I feel about that.
And we are going to the old town of Dhaka on a auto rickshaw.
If you're not from here, do not call this a Tuk-tuk.
Tuk tuk is a regional word.
We call this a CNG.
And back in the day, it used to be called another name, which was my favorite, a “baby taxi”.
Okay so right now we're in Sadarghat, which is the main port in the old town of Dhaka.
When you think about Dhaka today, you think about a city with 21 million people,
and it's bustling with tall buildings.
But the city really started over here in old town..
with slightly smaller buildings these days.
It was founded back in 1608,
back when it was the capital of the Bengal province of the Mughal Empire.
And the reason the city became prominent was because it was a key player in the trade of Muslin,
a fabric cloth that was really popular a couple of hundred years ago.
Dhaka was able to be this successful because it was right next to this place, the Buriganga river,
and this port played a huge role in Dhaka’s initial success back in the days.
The cool thing about Bangladesh is that..
people have never seen someone recording a film, so they really gather around..
and try to hang out with us.
What's your name (naam ki?)
- Sazzad.
All right, so this kid is now helping us find a boat.
We are on the Buriganga River.
This is a lot like Venice..
as in, the water is so toxic that no one can ever swim in here without getting skin cancer.
And the number of native residents that actually ride a boat in the city is probably like, less than 0.001%.
The main reason these boats operate is to help people bring their goods across the river.
Because, as you might know,
Dhaka has a lot of traffic and any time you can avoid that, that's a good deal.
So this experience hasn't exactly been all that I expected.
The water is gross, but somehow the still feels really peaceful and nice.
So this is the thing about Bangladesh, people are really friendly.
Now we're gonna go up and find the drone guy.
And from here we're going to move on to the next spot, which is a very famous building in Bangladesh.
This is what a sidewalk looks like..
in the most crowded neighborhood, in the most densely populated city..
in the most densely populated country on Earth.
Sometimes that's the only way to get through.
And that back there is what a mango auction looks like.
So right now, I'm in front of the Ahsan Manzil Museum, one of the more famous buildings in all of Bangladesh..
and it's closed right now because of the pandemic.
Back in the day, this used to belong to the Nabab of Dhaka,
which is the name given to the most wealthy Muslim “jomidar” or land owner in all of Bengal back in the day.
Now it's time to get some food.
This is a very basic, very traditional Bangladeshi breakfast at a resturant, but it's still really delicious.
Okay, right now I'm at Beauty Boarding, which is a very famous place in Puran Dhaka,
and used to be the biggest literary hub in the entire country.
Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan as East Pakistan until 1971..
And before that, before 1947, it used to be part of India as a British colony.
And the history of this place goes back all the way, even before the partition, before 1947.
This place used to be host to a Bangla newspaper called the Shonar(golden) Bangla.
Between 1949 and 1971..
lots of really famous poets used to come here, sit down, write their stuff, make music,
and it became popular around town as the place to be if you're an artist.
After the liberation war of Bangladesh happened, this place got closed down.
The owner of the place actually got killed, and it never really picked up after that.
But the legend still goes that this place was the [ __ ] back in the days.
Okay, so for the last historic stop of today,
I'm at the Lalbagh Fort complex, which is probably the most famous architectural monument in the whole country.
So this whole place was supposed to be a Mughal fort complex..
but the construction for it was never, ever finished,
even though it started in the 17th century, because the capital of the Mughal province here
got moved to somewhere else from Dhaka after construction started.
But it still looks pretty cool.
It's probably the coolest structure I've seen in Bangladesh, along with Paharpur, which is like up in the north of Bangladesh.
I'm definitely very glad I came here because it looks pretty serene, with the winter sunset and all happening behind me.
Now it's time to get my favorite kind of street food in Bangladesh.
It was only fitting to end the vlog eating my favorite street food that I hadn't eaten in the last four and a half years.
This is called Fuchka.
This is really, really hard to find abroad, and it's amazing.
And it can be really spicy and it's probably not the healthiest thing you can eat because..
you usually find it on the side of the street.
But it is the best thing ever.
That is going to be it for this vlog.
I'm actually re-shooting the outro right now, because I want to give a big shout out to Naibur Rahman Joy.
He's the guy that filmed all the drone shots.
This is actually five weeks after I shot the original footage for the vlog,
and that’s because the original guy I was working with for the drone couldn't really get what I wanted,
and I had to find the best guy (Naibur) in the country to do it.
I hope I was able to do my own hometown justice.
I don't think there are a lot of good cinematic vlogs about Dhaka,
and I'm excited about what I have so far with this one.
So if you like this video, hit that like button.
If you want to see more videos, please subscribe to my channel.
And recently I've started posting a lot of behind the scenes and behind the edits and sneak peeks on my Instagram.
So if you want to see any of that, follow me on Instagram @Nadironthego.
I’ll catch you guys on the next one.
I swear I'm actually leaving Bangladesh right now because it's time for me to go back to America.