I’ve long harbored a dream of taking an idyllic river trip in Bangladesh, sitting on an upper deck, sipping tea and watching fishermen cast their nets, water birds taking flight and small children splashing in the water. I thought I’d have the time to do one in January 2020, when I had a two-day break between presentations at universities in the southern delta region. Instead, my colleagues advised me to travel by road: in winter, fog often delayed the service and occasionally a boat ran aground on a sandbank. I resigned myself to making the 100-mile trip from Khulna, the third largest city in Bangladesh, to the river port of Barishal by road. If I couldn’t watch life on the river, well at least I could count the rivers I crossed.
Boatmen with nouka wait to ferry passengers across the Kirtankhola River at Barishal
It’s just under 100 miles from Khulna to Barishal on a circuitous route. Although there was relatively little traffic most of the way, the trip took 3 ½ hours. It would have taken even longer had it not been for the flamboyant maneuvers of my driver, Abdul, as he dodged trucks, buses, autorickshaws and slow-moving vans. He didn’t speak more than a few words of English, so I had to resort to hand flapping to make him slow down. I had begun the trip with the firm intention of counting bridges. After an hour or so, as we crossed the umpteenth one, I just gave up. I devoted my energies to gritting my teeth and gripping the door handle as Abdul executed his dangerous maneuvers.
There’s much more about the rivers of Bangladesh in Chapter Seven of Postcards from the Borderlands, to be published by Open Books in November. You can pre-order here. Here’s what readers who had a sneak preview are saying about it:
“David Mould’s writing shines brightest when he combines his personal thoughts and observations with research on borders that were often imposed by foreign powers with the flick of a pen. …The reader will never again take nations and borders as we find them today for granted” -Elizabeth Sammons, novelist and journalist, Columbus, Ohio
“A travel memoir which gives you more than a wishing you were here tag line. Detailed observations of crossing borders through the tangles of 19th century colonialism and the global push and shove of the early 21st century.”
-Victoria Westwood, writer and artist, New South Wales, Australia
Preview of “Bangladesh--River borders”
For a country the size of Illinois or Iowa, Bangladesh has a lot of rivers, around 700. Three major systems whose tributaries rise in the Himalayas, the Padma (Ganges), Jamuna (Brahmaputra) and Meghna, empty into the Bay of Bengal in the largest delta region in the world. Roughly 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s total area is water, a high proportion considering that it has no large lakes. In other words, most of that water is moving. When the Himalayan snows melt in the spring and the monsoon rains come in the summer, as much as one third of the country may be under water. The rivers are constantly shifting course, creating new channels or distributaries, making accurate mapping a frustrating exercise.
For Bangladesh’s rural population, the rivers are interwoven with every aspect of their lives. They sustain agriculture—rice paddies, fields of corn, mango orchards, fish and shrimp farms, herds of cattle, and flocks of ducks. They are the main highways for commerce, with small boats called nouka carrying fruit, vegetables, livestock, and building materials. In many places, you need to travel by river to reach the school, the health clinic, or the government office.
Sacks of rice, onions, potatoes, chilis and coconuts are loaded onto a short-haul ferry at Barishal
The rivers are also borders, dividing the country. Most flow south towards the Bay of Bengal, creating barriers to east-west travel and commerce. Ferry traffic depends on navigability; on a foggy winter day, in rough weather or in the dry season, east-west commerce may be delayed or halted. Some districts, reachable only by boat, remain isolated and underdeveloped, without paved roads or electricity. Although some rivers are easily bridged, crossing major rivers requires huge investments.
