http://www.joybangla.info Events, Travel and Info for long-term stays in Bangladesh Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:23:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en ©Mikey Leung joybangla.info@gmail.com (Mikey Leung) joybangla.info@gmail.com(Mikey Leung) 1440 Events, Travel and Info for long-term stays in Bangladesh Mikey Leung Mikey Leung joybangla.info@gmail.com No no http://www.joybangla.info/blog/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://www.joybangla.info 144 144 http://www.joybangla.info/2008/03/02/nazimgarh-resort-a-taste-of-bengali-luxury http://www.joybangla.info/2008/03/02/nazimgarh-resort-a-taste-of-bengali-luxury#comments Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:24:27 +0000 Mikey Leung http://www.joybangla.info/2008/03/02/nazimgarh-resort-a-taste-of-bengali-luxury http://www.joybangla.info/2008/03/02/nazimgarh-resort-a-taste-of-bengali-luxury/feed 10:03 ~story by Mikey Leung~ There are some rare moments as a guidebook writer that I am given a chance to enjoy the peace and serenity offered ... ~story by Mikey Leung~ There are some rare moments as a guidebook writer that I am given a chance to enjoy the peace and serenity offered to me by the natural beauty of Bangladesh, and I try to seek out these experiences whenever possible. One of these rare moments came as I sat on the terrace outside my room at the Nazimgarh Resort. The highway traffic hummed from a distance, but my attention remain fixed on the sound of a dozen different birds chattering away in the trees, most of whom were winter migrants like my Canadian self. I had just taken a stroll around the well-tended grounds of the resort. The sun broke through the winter morning clouds, painting the nearby mango trees in a golden hue. In short, I felt my soul replenishing. After experiencing the utter chaos of so many Bangladeshi cities, after dodging rickshaws, sewers and killer busses, after crashing out in some of the cheapest rooms the country has to offer, I finally had a moment of peace. A glimpse of what is currently quite rare in Bangladesh: luxury of a soon-to-be international standard. I'd been invited to Nazimgarh as their guest, to sample the service and to hear about the future vision of tourism development for the Sylheti region, specifically Jaintapur. My host is the intelligent and affable Nizam Kamran Chowdhury, a former politician and now Managing Director of the resort. As we sat in one of the dozen terraces, his visionary ideas for his region's development flew thick and fast. It wasn't long before he instructed his staff to pull out table-sized satellite images of the region patched together from Google Earth. Wielding a ruler, he showed me what the region will eventually become. The former member of parliament envisions a master plan that will promote its exhilarating natural beauty to visitors. The resort is in fact situated in a river basin that catches water from neighbouring Assam and Meghalaya---known as the wettest region in the world for its record rainfall. As monsoonal water comes down from the hills into Bangladesh from India, it floods the vast areas nearby the resort (no, the resort itself would not be flooded!). Chowdhury's ideas, if successful, will make this region the national hotspot for what I will bill "Monsoon Tourism." "The pre-conceived notion of tourism in Bangladesh is that it is a winter season," says Chowdhury. "But the monsoon itself is something that people would like to see. What is less known is that we are a few miles from the wettest places in the world." For most visitors, it is no secret that Bangladesh floods every year, and for this it is often painted as a victim to the natural calamities that befall it. But in fact, people have lived here for millenniums, and what is less known is that the annual floods bring with them a rich deposition of silt and new topsoil, breathing agricultural life force into the land, which gives rise to the rice that fuels its people. These same people have written lyrical folk songs about the region's beauty, in their unique dialect of Sylhoti, and have imbued the people here with a rich culture and heritage that forms a unique piece of the puzzle of the patchwork that is Bangladesh. "We are trying to open up these beautiful mountain rivers," says Chowdhury. "The colour of the water is emerald green. This is because the river is a sand river, and the water is filtered through the sand. It is one of the most pristine rivers in Bangladesh." Back on the ground, Chowdhury spoke of a multi-layered plan that would develop the infrastructure required to attract and support any manner of guest, local or foreign. The first project in this slate of ideas is the resort, which, once the other services come online (health facility, spa, beauty center), will become a most attractive and accessible destination, and hopefully remain more financially accessible than other luxury resorts I have experienced (but still far from inexpensive). During my visit in Destinations,,Interviews,,Responsible,Travel Mikey Leung no No http://www.joybangla.info/2008/02/01/interview-with-hasan-mansur-president-of-toab http://www.joybangla.info/2008/02/01/interview-with-hasan-mansur-president-of-toab#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:05:40 +0000 Mikey Leung http://www.joybangla.info/2008/02/01/interview-with-hasan-mansur-president-of-toab http://www.joybangla.info/2008/02/01/interview-with-hasan-mansur-president-of-toab/feed 11:03 Hasan Mansur, on right, at the September 2007 Bangladesh Travel and Tourism Fair. Click the photo to see more images from the fair. Hasan Mansur likes ... Hasan Mansur, on right, at the September 2007 Bangladesh Travel and Tourism Fair. Click the photo to see more images from the fair. Hasan Mansur likes to think of his work as "seeding fertile ground." The former agriculturalist was studying in the United States when he met a Swedish gentlemen who, at first, employed him as an impromptu tour operator and fixer. Mansur would later become the father of Bangladesh's embryonic tourist industry, after that same Swede employed him around South Asia and gave him all the background and experienced he needed to set up Guide Tours in 1989. Today he is the president of the Tourism Operators Association of Bangladesh (TOAB). He has now stepped back from the day-to-day operations of Guide Tours and is working for the development of the industry and its operators with TOAB. "It was April 1989," says Mansur, of the founding of his company. "I thought, let me plant a small tree and if it becomes big, it will provide shade, many people can come around and take shelter." Several years later, that tree is still growing and Bangladesh's domestic tourism industry is now growing steadily. "I have proven that it is possible to have a tourism business and survive in Bangladesh," says Mansur. Today, we bring you a two-part interview with Mansur. First, we get his perspective on how on how the industry needs the government's help in creating a fruitful tourism market in Bangladesh. Second, we hear the back story of Mansur himself and how he got his start as a tourism operator in Bangladesh. Please note: If you are located in Bangladesh you may have problems hearing this podcast due to limited bandwidth availability. Please download it first as the player will stop when it reaches the end of the data it has downloaded so far. Interviews Mikey Leung no No