~story by Mikey Leung~

Full Moon Beach Parties in Bangladesh? Just last year, most travellers wouldn’t have dreamed of it.

But the reality is that they are now a monthly occurrence, drawing anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred people to the beachside at Cox’s Bazaar every month.

The parties are an initiative of Alien Shohagh and Samiha Alam Bristy–the co-owning couple who have created Mermaid Cafe—a place that offers something quite different from the mass tourism experience offered by the rest of the venues at Cox’s.

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Tags: Beach,Cox's Bazaar,Full Moon Party,Mermaid Cafe
Categories: Destinations, Events
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RBBA, or “Responsible Business Bangladesh,” is a new initiative of Florence Calvet, a French national who has an excellent sense of duty to the people she employs and about the kind of business she wants to create.

In her own words:

What is behind the idea of RBBA and Chez Flo. It’s what I call Responsible Business or Ethic Business. It’s a way to help people from Bangladesh from inside meaning that I am helping them to develop business, generate incomes and then use this money to help more people.

Florence has started the business with a new guesthouse named Chez Flo, located in Uttara, a northern suburb of Bangladesh’s capital city Dhaka. Currently, there are two well-decorated rooms and a series of masterfully prepared deserts, cakes and drinks on offer, all created by Chez Flo’s staff under Florence’s guidance.

It’s an encouraging development to see new initiatives like Ms. Calvet’s—certainly we hope to visit the cafe the next time we’re in Uttara!

Her address:
Road 2, House 4
Uttara Sector 4
Dhaka, BANGLADESH
tel: +880 1732 284 946
http://www.chezflobangladesh.com/

Tags: Accommodation,Bangladesh,Repsonsible Travel,Responsible Business
Categories: Responsible Travel
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~story by Mikey Leung~

Award-winning Australian tour operator Intrepid Travel is coming to Bangladesh (click here to see the new itinerary).

This is big news, considering that Intrepid is one of the world’s leading Responsible Travel (RT) operators, having won the ‘Best Overall Tour Operator’ award from the UK’s Responsible Tourism awards in 2006.

Some words from their website on the matter:

For the past 18 years we’ve maintained a commitment to responsible and sustainable travel. We work with communities by establishing local businesses, we train and use local operators and we always ensure that our travellers really interact with the locals in their host communities.

By travelling responsibly we’re working to ensure that these incredible places, fascinating cultures and wonderful people are here to greet us in years to come. We’re empowering the local communities and creating richer, real life experiences for travellers.

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Tags: Intrepid Travel,New Trips,Tour Operators
Categories: Events, Responsible Travel, Travel, Uncategorized
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~story by Mikey Leung~

The Dhaka Project is one of those special projects that inspires hope, creates real change and works with some of the most disadvantaged children Bangladesh has to offer.

When Emirates flight attendant Maria Conceicao visited a slum near Zia International Airport, she decided she would change the future of the children she found there. Three years after the founding of the project, there are now two schools, a preschool, a nursery, a clinic, dentist, computer lab, science lab, and over 700 disadvantaged children getting an English medium education and two square meals a day.

Of course, none of these initiatives is possible without money, awareness and the helpful hand of so many people. Maria has worked tirelessly to raise the funds necessary to support her initiatives, and has been joined by volunteers from around the world to help her raise the funds and profile of the organisation. The project’s baseline funding is currently supplied by the Emirates Airline Foundation, although there is currently a new appeal out there for more funds for anybody who cares to support such initiatives.

Work like this is inspiring—the faces of so many children for whom this school represents the only chance to change their lives leaves a mark on your soul that you cannot forget.

For more information, please browse The Dhaka Project’s website, or have a look at volunteer Richard Fleming’s introduction via Youtube:

Tags: Education,The Dhaka Project,volunteering
Categories: Responsible Travel
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~story by Mikey Leung~

You’re considering a journey to Sundarban, one of the world’s most pristine wildernesses and certainly a highlight of the subcontinent. Who do you turn to for more information?

In the course of our research we’ve managed to try out a few operators—but perhaps you know others. Feel free to let us know via your comments if you’ve tried out any other companies, or who to avoid. Here’s our review:

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Tags: Mangroves,Sundarban,Tour Operators,Tours
Categories: Editorials, FAQ, Sundarbans
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~story by Mikey Leung~

The German Club (House No. 24, Road. No. 104) is hosting an exhibition of brass sculptures on May 1st and 2nd, 09:30am - 19:30pm. The sculptures were produced by the Banik family of the Dhamrai Metal Works and the designs are splendidly intricate and detailed. Sukanta Banik has long been fighting to preserve this art, which he says has been in his family for generations.

You can see more pictures from my visit to Dhamrai here.

The exhibition is being held because Sukanta says he needs to raise funds and save his historic house, the same venue where the sculptures are produced. He writes:

Many of you have been here – visited it, seen a demonstration or two, walked though hallways, browsed in our shop, had a cold drink or a cup of my mother’s lemon tea. In a short time, our family might lose this place.

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Tags: Art,Bangladesh,Culture,Dhamrai Metal Works,Sukanta Banik
Categories: Events
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~story by Mikey Leung~

A number of people have e-mailed us noting the recent news that a Lonely Planet author admitted to not even travelling to some of the destinations he wrote about, to which Lonely Planet has already written a factually-based retort on its website.

The offending author, Thomas Kohnstamm, claims that he didn’t get paid enough, and actually, it is true that very few people in the industry make enough to make a living. Considering he’s just published a book called “Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?” it makes sense for him to pull a kind of publicity stunt in order to drive sales of that book, considering that under Lonely Planet’s system, he won’t be collecting royalties on those book sales.

For our end of things at the Joybangla.Info, we can tell you that fact-checking and reviewing places is a utterly painstaking process. We are also accountable to you, our readers, because we will get paid when you purchase our book via royalties. My name will be attached to the work and, right on its cover. Therefore, I want it to be top notch. It’s not worth doing it otherwise!!

Tags: Bangladesh,Controversy,Lonely Planet,Thomas Kohnstamm
Categories: Editorials
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