Bangladesh

Along the southeast coast of Bangladesh is the Mohsin ship breaking yard where immense ocean freighters and tankers are torn apart by hundreds of gritty, lean, strong, bronze-skinned, men–by manual labor. Using blow torches, sledgehammers and wedges they carve the mammouth steel whales into chunks just off shore. After the huge pieces crash into the

Chittigong city is Bangladesh’s second largest metropolis with about four million people. For tourists there are only a few sights such as the War Cemetery, the Zia Museum, Shahi Jama-e mosque and a market. Not mentioned in guidebooks is the huge and haunting ship-breaking yard just north of the city. Photos 2-5 below reveal a

Dhaka is the capitol of Bangladesh with about 11 million people. Every form and level of life is here, from upscale mansions and privileged kids playing cricket to impoverished manual workers tearing down buildings with sledge hammers as well as women picking through garbage. Traffic is intense and dense; bicycle rickshaws by the thousands clog

Dhaka is the capitol of Bangladesh with about 14 million people. Every form and level of life is here. Dhaka University is the Cambridge of Bangladesh where only the best students gain entry (photos 10-16). The huge but polluted Buriganga River (photos 21-28) slices through the city making it a port for cargo and passengers–and

The drive from Jessore airport to Khulna city (on the way to Mongla and the Sundarbans National Park) takes about an hour and offers a ride via the village of Bagerhat where many mosques were built in the 15th century. Along the way are countless waterways where small cargo boats transport goods from one village

Traveling by car from Mongla to Khulna reveals a kaleidoscope of variety–from bicycle carts loaded with huge cargos to animal crossings to overloaded buses to busy ferry landings (in Kulna, photos 25-37). In Khulna city is the Khulna Shipyard Ltd (repairing yard) where workers including women chip paint from old hulls with hand-held chisels (photos

On the south coast of Bangladesh the Sundarbans (and Sundarbans National Park) contain the largest mangrove forests in the world. An easy boat ride from the town of Mongla (photos 51-64) leads into the forest via small rivers and rivulets. The park lies in the enormous delta at the mouth of the Ganges River and

Cox’s Bazar is Bangladesh’s beach resort town on the southeast coast near Burma. Getting there by bus from Chittagong is another colorful adventure of street life and risky vehicle drivers. Photos 1-23 reveal the vibrant social and commercial life along the main highway, including military practice maneuvers with soldiers sporting live-ammunition machine guns (photo 9).

The face of Bangladesh is a great portrait of human beauty, of hardship, youth and aging, restraint and color, urban and rural, manual labor and spontaneous friendliness and curiosity. Most of these images are taken from other Bangladesh photo galleries.

The face of Bangladesh is a great portrait of human beauty, of hardship, youth and aging, restraint and color, urban and rural, manual labor and spontaneous friendliness and curiosity. Most of these images are taken from other Bangladesh photo galleries.