Have You Ever Been to Jail?

Today we started a trip to Chittagong, the other big city in Bangladesh. It's normally a 6-hour drive but we ended up taking around 14 hours with all of the stops we made. This was my favorite day here so far because it's the first time I felt like I've seen real Bangladesh. We left at 6am and we've got a tour guide with us for the next few days. His name is NNG, and he's an executive at MRA's company who speaks probably the best English I've heard of any Bangladeshi so far. He's also a relatively young guy so I finally had someone to ask questions to!

Major insight from the car ride: "Laws are just for paper. If you have money, you are the law." - NNG
At some point during hte ride, I was talking to NNG about the criminal justice system in Bangladesh and in an attempt to know what prison conditions are like, I'm pretty sure I accidentally asked him if he'd ever been to jail. Whoops!

Our first tourist stop was at this big river junction where the Dhakatia River is formed. The junction is so big it looks more like a lake than a river. It was the first time I've been outside when it's raining so I finally got to wear my rain jacket!

We also stopped by a place called Moinamoti, the site of an ancient civilization. You can just... walk around the ruins, it's crazy.

We finally arrived at our destination in Chittagong: the Butterfly Park of Bangladesh, also owned by MRA. It's pretty much the Bangladeshi version of San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers, where live butterflies fly all around you. Except in Bangladesh, this is a one-of-a-kind place. Being a guest of MRA's meant that even though the place was closed, they turned on the lights for me and let me walk around the place by myself.

My hotel room had a lizard crawling around on the walls. I have nothing else to say about that.