Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) From Kathmandu to Chittagong was an easy trip, but then you hit traffic. Traffic and air pollution are the main issues in many large regional cities, such as Dhaka, New Delhi, Kathmandu, and Chittagong. They are all congested with traffic woes and surrounded by brick kilns. We were on an official meeting trip with lots of interesting people to meet and places to go. Chittagong traffic There are an estimated 8,000 brick kilns in Bangladesh emitting 10 million tons of CO2. Everywhere you drive, you cannot miss seeing the smokestacks. Arriving at Kaptai Lake, we feel a bit more at peace. However, the lake is not without controversy - it was created for hydropower, but it also covered thousands of homes and hectares of agricultural land belonging to the Tripura people. They are now landless and living in settlements. For Kaptai, pollution issues stemming from fertilizers, pesticides, and huge amounts of human waste are a bigger conce...

Bangladesh - Sundarban to Bandarban By Road from Dhaka to Khulna In Dhaka, I joked that we were in the land of 3G - gritty air, gridlock traffic, and greatly overpopulated. Bangladesh is typically not high on the tourist list for a holiday, yet when the opportunity to visit came up, we decided that the best sights were the famous mangrove forests of the Sundarbans and the highland area of Bandarban. There are also famous traffic jams. The car that picked us up was so dilapidated that the boot would not close. The driver had to stop on the road, hunt for some wire, and tie it down. Only the front passenger seatbelt worked. The traffic was so chaotic - we needed those seatbelts. We tried to negotiate for another car and gave up, deciding to commit to the misadventure. The ferry looked like a relic from WWII. On the ferry, we became instant attractions for the boat passengers. Mostly because it was unusual for them to see foreign tourists, and we were definitely worth staring at. On...