Hello Vietnam!

Well, after saying my sad farewells to the 'desh, I just couldn't bring myself to go home, at least not quite yet. Next stop Vietnam!

One of the first place I visited was the trading outpost of Hoi An, a coastal town that's been declard a world heritage site. At one point, it traded with the Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, and Indians, about 300-400 years ago was its hey-day. Now it's just a major tourist attraction in Vietnam, I can see why. It's beautifully preserved with it's building painted in vibrant colors, and I can easily spend a week just wandering around the narrow alleyways getting lost.




Of course, with the proximity to the ocean, water is a major part of the culture.
Floating basket maker



Pointing out the fish to scoop out


It actually rained quite a bit, so people did what they could to stay dry. Lots of plastic bags being worn, even those without airholes! People even wore a massive poncho that had a clear "window" for the headlight of the motorbike to shine through.

Farewell to the 'desh

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to Bangladesh. My STOP assignment is now over, and it'll be sad to leave it behind. I've made some good friends, and I have nothing but good memories. Despite Bangladesh being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, the people are genuinely warm and friendly- their government and public officials definitely are not representive of everyday Bangladeshis. I think I've been invited to drink so much tea with people, my blood type is now chai, hah.

Anyways, I couldn't possibly leave Bangladesh without taking some street photos one last time! Enjoy...

Street flooding


School bus


The mysterious floating umbrella


Pan seller


Cloth rider


Karen was doing her best trying to blend in with the locals. I guess it worked since shopkeepers addressed her as "sister," a term for muslim women. Personally, I thought it was a good Jackie O impression, hah!


I couldn't tell if this buggy ride was for pleasure or for work. The carriages kind of looked like the ones that take tourist around Central Park, but they were overloaded with people and cargo like the rickshaws are. Go figure...


Finishing up all his rice


Butcher and his wares


Street shave



Flowers for your memories?

Scenes from Rangunia

To get some of the hard to reach areas, we would have to cross rivers, sometimes by vehicle ferries.


So you know what that means? Captive audience to take photos of, hah!



The everyday scenes were fascinating though, to me at least.

National Immunization Day, round 4

With all the recent polio cases, it was decided to have another round of trying to vaccinate all the kids in Bangladesh. Children are supposed to have 4 doses of the vaccine to be considered fully vaccinated. And of course, the NID just gave me another excuse to tote my camera around in Bangladesh villages and take some snaps.

Meet my friend Karen, who made a stop out in Bangladesh enroute to her project site in India! She wanted to vaccinate the little ones in Bangladesh, so we dropped her off in a remote village outside of Noakhali (and told the workers she was a supervisor, hah). She caught on to vaccinating the little ones immediately, all she had to do was give the vaccination version of "here comes the choo-choo train."


After 3 hours of vaccinating and playing soccer with the village boys, it was good to see that I'm not the only one who has the piedpiper effect.


Oh by the way, sorry for not telling you all the good news earlier, but Karen was actually my Bangladesh "wife"! It was a lot easier to introduce her to the Bangladesh locals that way, although it took some getting used to her signing the bills with my last name. Hmm... so this is what married life is reduced to? Just signing bills? Hah!


Such a great sight to see... kids toting around kids nearly the same size as themselves.




The bede are kind of like the gypsies of Bangladesh. They sell cheap trinkets, have monkeys on display, and are snake charmers. They're also nomadic, but like everyone else in Bangladesh, they need to have their kids vaccinated. They're definitely an at-risk population since education is lacking and unserved. But their kids are awfully cute!

No. 10

I was so very sad to see polio case 10 in Bangladesh, but I guess it was just a reminder why I'm in public health in the first place. It was one of experiences that I'll never quite forget, one of those memories that are now etched in my brain.

This little boy is a year and a half old. It's not that he isn't loved, you can tell that immediately by the way his grandpa was holding him so tightly while clenching prayer beads, and the way EVERYONE in his family was answering questions about his health. His parents even took him to a medical doctor several times, despite their poverty and lack of an education. He even had his full vaccinations against polio, similar to a lot of the other cases in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, he lives on dirt floors, has constant diarrhea, and as a result is malnourished, making the polio vaccine ineffective.

Trying to walk


With good nutrition and proper exercise therapy of his leg, he may be able to walk again. I guess this just shows that sometimes there are just a lot of other problems that can't be solved by simply receiving a vaccine.

Shipbreaking yards

One of the more jaw dropping "sites" in Bangladesh are the shipbreaking yards in Bhatiara, right outside of Chittagong. Bangladesh, China, and India are home to some of the largest scrapping yards in the world. Parts of huge ships and their skeletons dot the landscape. A supervisor told me that it takes 4 month to take apart the huge super tankers.

After 25 years or so, it's no longer profitable for companies to continue to maintaining and repairing large tanker ships. So they send them to yards to be torn apart, and the raw materials are recycled.


Despite all the awesome scenery, all is not well with these yards. Workers are basically given a crowbar, a hammer, and an acetylene torch and have a go at these huge cargo ships.




The workers get paid as low as $1.50 a day to work under some of the most hazardous conditions. On a weekly basis someone is either maimed or killed. Most workers don't have safety gear, not to mention the ships use to contain hazardous materials. Asbetos is everywhere in these breaking yards.



It took 4 tries and some Bangladesh connections to finally find a yard that would allow me to take photographs in. You see, the shipyards are extremely profitable and operated by an underworld syndicate element. With Greenpeace hounding the owners about worker safety conditions, environmental hazards, and child labor violations, it's no wonder they are a bit camera shy.