Adventures in downtown Dhaka

I suppose there must be worse places to be marooned. This was Pabna, a small town 300km to the west of Dhaka. And we were staying at the delightfully named hotel, the Serenity World Park and Rest House.

It was a Friday afternoon that we set off to drive there from the Bangladeshi capital after lunch. That was our first mistake.

There had already been demonstrations in Dhaka close to the American Embassy about the showing of the Innocence of Muslims clip on YouTube.

We should have known that feelings would be heightened after the Friday prayers and that the demonstrations would spread.

As it was, we got caught up in demonstrations well before we left the city limits. We were stopped in a queue of cars.

The crowd of demonstrators were coming towards us along the road, holding up banners, shouting slogans and brandishing sticks. Many of them peered into the car – and I was tempted to hide my white face.

There were two such demonstrations before we escaped the city and were moving more freely along country roads, where the only things to fear were the kamikaze truck drivers. (I had thought that Kenyan matatus had the worst drivers in the world – but now I am not so sure.)

Because of the initial delays it was dark long before we reached Pabna. Many oncoming drivers failed to dip their lights and, time and time again, we had to lurch off the road to avoid head-on collisions.

It was late when we got to the hotel: time only for a quick meal, a shower, and then to the room to sleep. So it was not till daybreak that we were able to appraise this Serenity World Park and Rest House.

It wasn’t long before we realised that it had a few things in common with another hotel with a long name: the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in India – featuring in the happiest film I have seen for many years.

Like at the Marigold Hotel, it seemed as if we were among the first guests to stay there – and none of the staff had experience of what it takes to make guests serene or restful.

We were not surprised to find no Internet; we could understand that there was no running hot water; but we were puzzled that there were no blankets on the beds – and quite put out that the staff seemed at a loss about what it takes to clean a bedroom.

However, like in the Marigold Hotel, the manager was a young man of great charm. He was clearly doing his best to please – despite the very meagre resources at his disposal.

On the third and last night we stayed there, he even managed to find some blankets.

We stayed three nights in Pabna instead of two, because the anti-film demonstrations had grown on the Sunday to become a countrywide hartal, or strike.

On the Saturday night there had been some disturbances in the town, and one of the hotel vehicles had been stoned, just outside the gates.

Like all foreigners, we were warned by our diplomatic missions and international aid agencies to stay inside, keep our heads down – and not take to the roads till daylight on the Monday.

It was certainly a more relaxed drive back to Dhaka. There is a unique beauty in the Bangladesh countryside – a green landscape of lush meadows, rice fields, and a crisscross of waterways.

Dhaka is a much cleaner and vibrant city than it was when I first visited it back in the mid-1990s. We had stayed at the Sheraton then and, after a couple of days irritated by the fume-filled surrounding streets, we had moved out to a guest house in the quieter and more relaxed suburb of Gulshan.

This time, we were staying in the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel and not far from the Sheraton. Yes, the traffic problem is bad; you can spend up to a third of your day in the car, crawling between meetings.

But since the auto-rickshaw tuk-tuks went green with natural gas in 2003, the city streets have become sweeter even if more crowded.

John Fox is managing director of iDC