The Grameen Fund Summary

This is part of what I wrote for my Internship Report:

So, what does the Grameen Fund do? They provide, among other things, financing to small and medium enterprises (SME). This is very important because these businesses are often unserved by both the commercial banks and microfinance banks. They are not poor enough to be accepted by MFIs and they require more services than they can provide. Commercial banks generally do not consider SME financing important since it is much more profitable for them to focus on much larger clients. Thus there is the 'SME finance gap' between these two groups of banks.

This is where Grameen Fund and other SME financing institutions such as BRAC and Basic Bank come in. They provide their clients with loans and other services to help them grow and expand their businesses. This is very important for a country to continue its development. It is all great if everyone in the country has a cow and a rice paddy field, but some of these businesses must keep growing for substantial growth to occur.

The Grameen Fund used to operate through Grameen Bank branches, however just 9 months ago they left and started operating through their own branches or 'booths'. Now they find, appraise, disburse and collect their own loans. It is our job to make profiles of the two branches that we are visiting and asses the progress that they have made and make recommendations on how they can improve! We also want to do a couple case studies of some of their clients, and get to do some in depth interviews with them.

Our trip to Grameen Fund was very interesting and definitely worthwhile for many reasons. It was worth it just to get out of Dhaka and actually get to do something. But it was also very interesting to get to talk to the Fund. They are a very new business.

The Grameen Fund is the next step after the Grameen Bank on the development food chain. They deal with bigger clients and have fewer restrictions than the Bank does. The Fund deals with already established business owners who want to get bigger loans than they can get with Grameen Bank. Fund offers loans which are greater than tk 50,000, the average loan size that we saw was between tk 1-2 lakh (tk 100-200,000).

There are a number of other features that make Fund more appealing to larger businesses. They have monthly repayment instalments instead of the Grameen Bank’s weekly ones, and they have no requirement to be in a group or attend weekly meetings. Instead clients get a visit at least once a month from the Booth Manager where he comes and visits to see how the borrower is doing, encourage them and give advice if needed.

They have been around for a couple years but they only just split from the Grameen bank and started doing things themselves about 9 months ago. Now they have their own booth offices across the country, currently they only have 6, but that are plans to double that by the end of the year.

 We were asked to go to the field and visit one of the booths and make a report on the Grameen Fund with an assessment of the booth system and recommendations for the future.

We came up with a couple recommendations:

1. Organise better with the Grameen Bank on who is going to offer Micro Enterprise Loans, as well as making use of the Grameen Bank’s network.
• Currently both are but we feel that just Grameen Fund should be offering them.
• They should have a graduation system for Bank members to become Fund members. We are not sure if they do have one it was hard to get a clear answer because we would here different things depending on who we asked.
• Promote themselves more through the Grameen Bank so that people know more about it and the benefits of getting loans from them.
• Instead of setting up more booths, they could instead rent an office at Grameen Bank Branches, that way the Fund can make use of the existing infrastructure and
2. Keep expanding their booth network both in terms of the number of booths and number of employees at each booth. Currently the manager is able to visit all his borrowers but it requires a lot of travelling.
3. Further decentralization of the booths, such as giving them more autonomy over the loan approval process. Also technology like computers need to be used to their full potential to save time and allow for more rapid communication between head office and the booths. This may require training of booth managers or hiring of computer technicians. 

Cheers,

Mike

The Indian Story

Ok, I am now back in Canada, and it has been a very busy week so I have not had much time to update the blog. I will pick up where I left off...

So the next morning I met Will, the English guy I met on my flight, and we check into a triple room at Hotel Maria on Sudder Street. His friend Tom was arriving later that day. We then wandered around the neighbourhood, found a McDonalds and had the local version of the Big Mac. From there we found a nice book store where we sat and read a little over a cup of Darjeeling tea!

I found a book about poverty and aid that I was interested in, but it was a little big and I did not think it would fit in my bag. However, I did find a book about a Indo-Canadian living in Muskoka, so I had to pick up that! That night, once Tom had arrived, we went to go watch the England game at a club / bar a couple blocks away, and came home disappointed and went to bed.

One of my friends back in Dhaka had suggested that I go talk to the two owners of a shop on Sudder St (The main street in the backpacker community). I went over and met them, Sanjay and Ankash - they were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Their shop was filled with scarves, bags and shirts of all different colours, and they were constantly bringing me and any other visitors a cup of tea. At the shop I met a couple from Australia who invited me to come with them to a French Gypsy Jazz concert at the Alliance Francais in Kolkatathat evening! I thought - how many people can say they went to a French Gypsy Jazz concert in Kolkata? so I had to say yes, I would come!

I stayed there for a bit before deciding to go do some sightseeing. I set off to walk to the Victoria Memorial and on the way found Elliot Gardens, a little grassy area in themidst of busy Kolkata. It had plenty of benches for couples to hide themselves away on and escape from the watching eyes of their parents. Eventually I made it up to the Victoria Memorial and paid a whole 4 rupees to get into the gardens there!

The memorial was spectacular. It looked like it was made entirely from white marble stones, with some amazing statues and domes adorning the roof. It was far and away the cleanest and best kept building I had seen in 6 weeks!

That night I met up with Will and Tom and convinced them to come with us on the Kolkata metro to the Gypsy concert. The concert was actually really cool, I really enjoyed the rhythm and beat of the songs, and the performance was capped off with a guest appearance by two local musicians! From there we rushed back to the bar to watch the Ghana-Serbia game and have a couple beers... and I woke up the next morning with my glasses, wallet, watch and camera gone.

The other guys had nothing of their stolen and none of us remembered exactly what had happened. We were able to piece together that we had left the bar showing the Ghana game and had tried to find a bar showing the midnight game, but with no success. However that was the extent of our memories. Maybe my drink was spiked? or I was a little too trusting of my new friends? Who knows.

I quickly cancelled my debit and credit cards, exchanged some of my Taka, which I had left in the hotel, for rupees and I spent the rest of the day in the shop with Sanjay and Ankash. Luckily my passport had been back in the hotel, and I had some extra money there as well. Sanjay was incredibly helpful and he organised a cab to meet me early the next morning to take me to the airport.

So it was a unfortunate way to end my Indian adventure, however I did have a great time there and I definitely want to come back and visit Kolkata again as well as the rest of India.

Cheers,
Mike

Kolkata!

I am in Kolkata now for a little vacation within a vacation. I booked my flight last week to India, but I hadn't been able to book my train, I couldn't figure out how to until the day of my flight. By the time i\I had figure out where I could book online, they were sold out. But I thought I would still try the train station to see if there were any available.

I landed in Kolkata and got a taxi to Howrah train station. However , after being in Dhaka I had exchanged all my US dollars already so I did not have any more. One of my friends gave me $10 US though so I had a little, but I needed to find an ATM. This was harder than I thought it would be, it seems like most ATMs here close at 4pm, and by that time it was about 5 or 6 pm.

Once I had money I went to try and get an overnight ticket to Varanasi, but with no luck. So now I was in Kolkata, with no hotel, no train, no ones phone number and I didn't even know anyone here (even If I had a number, my phone was dead, and it does not work in India apparently). My parents had scanned and emailed me a couple pages from an Indian guide book, so I knew that Sudder street had a bunch of backpacker hotels for really cheap. So I got another taxi from Howrah to Sudder street. My taxi driver wouldn't actually go on the street because apparently it was closed.

I wandered around and eventually stopped to look at my map and ask directions. This really nice lady came up and asked where I was trying to go, I told her one of the hotel names from the pages my parents had sent me. She had to go into the store behind me to buy something but her friend stayed with me until she was back. Then she lead me around to the hotel and gave me her number so if I needed anything I could contact her. The Bengali hospitality extends into India it seems!

From there I got a bed in a dorm room for 100 rs per night with a fan and a locker for my bags. Then I headed around the corner to a pub and had a nice cold beer and watch part of the South Africa-Mexico game. I got talking to one guy from Bangladesh, when an English guy who had been on my flight walked into the pub! So we ate and had a couple drinks there and agreed to meet again the next day to go around Kolkata together.

So now I have a couple days in Kolkata, Saturday till Monday and then I fly out Tuesday morning!

Cheers,
Mike

The SME Finance Gap and Our Project

Ok, after a week of Ross sitting in the Grameen Fund's office and my failed week of trying to get a second village trip planned, we finally have a trip with Grameen Fund happening!

Ross and I will be going to one of Grameen Fund's booths in Noakhali, and Melanie (one of the other interns at the Bank) and an intern from Grameen Fund will be going to Feni. Feni and Noakhali are both about 5-6 hours south east of Dhaka and about an hour apart from each other.

So, what does the Grameen Fund do? They provide, among other things, financing to small and medium enterprises (SME). This is very important because these businesses are often unserved by both the commercial banks and microfinance banks. They are not poor enough to be accepted by MFIs and they require more services than they can provide. Commercial banks generally do not consider SME financing important since it is much more profitable for them to focus on much larger clients. Thus there is the 'SME finance gap' between these two groups of banks.

This is where Grameen Fund and other SME financing institutions such as BRAC and Basic Bank come in. They provide their clients with loans and other services to help them grow and expand their businesses. This is very important for a country to continue is development. It is all great if everyone in the country has a cow and a rice paddy field, but some of these businesses must keep growing for substantial growth to occur.

The Grameen Fund used to operate through Grameen Bank branches, however just 9 months ago they left and started operating through their own branches or 'booths'. Now they find, appraise, disburse and collect their own loans. It is our job to make profiles of the two branches that we are visiting and asses the progress that they have made and make recommendations on how they can improve! We also want to do a couple case studies of some of their clients, and get to do some in depth interviews with them.

So that is what I will be doing for the next couple days in Noakhali. I will probably not have any internet so I will update you when we get back!

Cheers,
Mike

My Reflections after one Month

Putting together the intern feedback form made me consider what I would out on it...

Overall I would definitely say that the trip was an amazing experience and definitely worth it. I learned a lot about microfinance, poverty and development, met a ton of new and interesting people from all over the world and got to experience a completely different culture. To people who are interested in doing the same or a similar trip I would definitely encourage it, but there are a couple things to do differently. 

Start to think about what you want to get out of the trip before you come here, research some of the sister companies and other NGOs and see if you want to learn more about them. Also see if there is some way to tie in what you are studying and interested in to the trip. For example I should have done some more research on NGOs or development agencies who were working in Dhaka on urban devleopment. So I would suggest set aside 4 weeks for the Grameen Bank, and then another 1-2+ weeks for one of the sister companies or another interest of your choice. In total I would say the ideal time would be about 6 weeks in Bangladesh which gives you enough time to learn about the Grameen Bank and get stuck in to another department.

I definitely have learned a lot and have seen so much that I never would have back in Canada. This trip has also inspired me to keep with it and expand on what we already have. Up until now I have mostly been focussed on just microcredit but now in Bangladesh I am seeing that MFIs a very important piece, but there are other important pieces as well. For example, after learning more about the Grameen Fund I am learning that Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) financing, is a hugely important piece of the puzzle which is largely missing right now.

Overall I feel that I could have gotten a lot more out of the program if I had a better idea of what I wanted to do before I came here. This was the motivation to try to get old interns talking to new interns before they come to the bank. The first week and a half was spent going on a day trip and a weeklong trip. The following two weeks was spent visiting and meeting with sister companies. After that, more and more time just got wasted sitting around the head office.

Before I came I was under the impression that they would have a program for us to follow for the whole 6 weeks, however their program at most lasts 4 weeks. Beyond that it is up to you to request to do certain things, the problem is that everything takes longer to do here. Frequently I came to the bank and was told to come back after lunch, or the next day and it took a long time for things to get done.

The first weeklong trip was a great experience, but I did not know what to expect and was not able to make the most use out of it. I would have liked to spend another long trip doing a more investigative study on the effect that microcredit has had on peoples' lives.

In the future I would suggest that interns should be told to use their weeklong trip to collect data to answer a research question. For example I was interested finding out how much the borrower's standard of living had improved since joining Grameen Bank. How much more savings, land, food, better housing did they have now compared to before? Unfortunately I did not think to ask these questions systematically to every borrower we talked to on our weeklong trip and I never got to go on a second.

So in summary the trip has been an amazing experience but I could have gotten a lot more out of it if I had been more organised before I got here and in my first couple weeks.

Cheers,

Mike

They still have Bureaucracy Halfway around the World

I am not sure if bureaucracy is the right word, but despite a very minimal legal system here, we still felt tied down by issues of liability and responsibility for the safety of the interns...

We had an interesting meeting with the general manger of the International Program. When we proposed our ideas she got very apprehensive. Even though they have no legal responsibility for the safety of the interns they still go to great lengths to protect us from harm. Very different from in Canada where The Unviersity of Western Ontario said that we were not allowed to go as a club to Bangladesh. For the sole reason that they did not think that they could escape the legal and financial risk of us travelling. In Bangladesh they have different reasons but the same outcome by the looks of it.

In our meeting we proposed the 4 changes listed in my previous blog post. She was not in favour of most of them since she wants the department to be able to control all information that goes out to interns. She especially did not like our idea about how old interns could answer emails and give presentations to new interns. Basically we are never supposed to walk any long distance, or take rickshaws, or auto rickshaws, or go sightseeing without a tour guide. We didn't even bother asking about going to markets.

If I had followed those warnings you could erase more than half of the pictures and stories I have posted. I never would have gone to Srimongal, no tour of Lalbag Fort, no river cruise, would never have had the chance to walk through the markets.

Dhaka may be an incredibly hard place to live because of the heat, pollution, garbage and traffic. But it is actually incredibly safe, I have never felt threatened or thought I was in danger. All the interns, guys and girls, feel the same way. Sure the driving here takes a little bit of getting used to, but after that it is ok.

I have had one instance where someone tried to rob me. It was starting to get dark and we were in old Dhaka, a little boy came from behind and put his hand in my back pocket – which had nothing in it. I yelled hey at the kid, and another man immediately yelled at him as well. Crime here is not tolerated. A couple of the interns saw a man get beat up for stealing on the weekend. 

So unfortunately it looks like our reforms to the internship program are going to fall on deaf ears. We are going to push ahead with our feedback form and suggestion to have one mandatory starting day each week. Then we will be forced likely to do our won thing and set up our own unofficial FAQ and forum separate from the bank.

 

Cheers,

Mike

Give the City Busses a Chance

I must take back my assessment of urban public transport in Bangaldesh. Up until yesterday I had still not ridden the public bus system, it just seemed too chaotic to me. Often you see people jumping on and off busses while they are still moving. However yesterday we bumped into a group of interns from Germany who had a Bengali guide showing them around.

The guide was going to take them back to the hotel on the public bus, so we thought it might be fun too. We took rickshaws to the nearest bus station and then waited for the Germans to catch up to us. Several times though people came up and asked us where we wanted to go, and we could have easily caught our own bus.

It was a fun experience which I wish I had earlier in my trip. The bus had extremely tiny seats, and took even longer than usual but on the whole the ride was nice and relaxing. To get from old Dhaka back to our hotel in the suburbs it took about an hour. The same ride in a tuk tuk (auto rickshaw) would have taken about 45 minutes depending on how motivated your driver was and his sense of direction.

I now know the names of several of the bus stops in central Dhaka, so I can hopefully find busses that go to them from our hotel! Unfortunately I will likely not get much chance to use my bus skills since I am going to be away for the rest of my trip pretty much.

It is confirmed, we are going to a Grameen Fund "Booth" from Tuesday to Thursday. Ross, Melanie and I as well as an intern with Grameen Fund will be going to do a report and study their operations. Then Friday afternoon I am flying out to Kolkata and flying back early Tuesday morning!

Cheers,

Mike

Changes to the Internship Program

I have been talking with a couple of the other interns about how to improve the internship program and make better use of the coordinators’ time and to allow for a more organic way for the program to improve.

As it stands currently the coordinators spend a lot of time responding to emails from people who are applying to do the internship. Most of these questions are very repetitive since most people have similar concerns. At present there is not a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions section on their website for interns to look. Because of this interns are forced to ask the coordinators more questions.

Another problem is that there are many interns who arrive throughout a week, and are all on slightly different schedules. The coordinators are forced to give the same introductory presentation and explanation of the Grameen system over and over.

Finally, there is only a very limited method of evaluation and feedback by interns of the bank. Each intern is required to write a report on the experience that they had while they were here and then fill in a very quick survey. However, after looking at some reports that they consider are good, it does not look like that read them all that thoroughly.

In addition to the changes we proposed below, I was also thinking about having more structure for the report that we write. I think the bank should encourage us to collect some data and do some research while we are here and write a proper research paper. I am going to try and do this a little bit when I go to the village again this coming week. I am going to go to a new branch and an old branch and compare the progress of borrowers in both by seeing how much they have improved their living conditions using land, buildings (size and building material), savings and diet to measure their progress (later today I will post more about what I am going to do this coming week).

So in response to these problems, three other interns, Joshua, Julian, Melanie and myself have been discussing simple solutions that we think could be easily implemented.

1. Feedback Form
• Purpose: To allow for an anonymous method of improving the internship over time
• To be completed at the end of the internship
• Would include feedback on performance of Translators and Coordinators, effectiveness of the program, areas for improvement of the program, educational benefits gained while at the bank and suggesting new ideas for social businesses, sister companies, etc.
• Anonymous System which will be run and maintained by old students shortly before leaving
2. Intern Forum
• Purpose: To save time for coordinators from answering emails and to allow for better communication between prospective interns and experienced interns
• There should be a link to the forum on the Grameen Webpage, and coordinators should direct new interns to look at the site before they come to the bank
• Would be maintained by alumni of the internship program during and after the stay.
• Would enable people considering the internship to ask questions of other people from their own country.
• Alumni would have the option to be ambassadors and list their: name, country, contact information, date and length of their internship, age and a summary of their internship
• Also a section to upload select reports and an FAQ section maintained by interns
3. Introductory Presentation by Old Interns to New Interns
• Purpose: Connect new and old interns, and allow for experiences and advice to get passed along, while also saving the coordinators from giving the same presentation over and over to new interns
• Presentation (Powerpoint, or other) of experiences at the bank as well as an educational presentation of the products that the Grameen Bank offers and their organisational system
• Group events – group trips to dinner, cricket games, sights, etc.
4. More Structured Program
• Purpose: to prevent the need for multiple introductory presentations in one week, place interns in groups right from the first day, creates groups of people even if they are not all living at the same hotel
• Only one starting date each week,
• We suggest Wednesday – allows for introduction on Wednesday and day trip on Thursday, and weeklong trip starting on Sunday/Monday
• Interns that are staying for longer than 4 weeks should be encouraged from the start to start thinking about a sister company that they would like to get placed in, or a research question they would like to study

 The network of alumni would enable people to be better prepared before they arrive. For example the issue of money: I only brought a little US dollars and some travellers cheques. The US dollars came in very handy at the airport, but I have been unable to find anywhere convenient to use my travellers cheques. The only place I have heard, are the banks in the Gulshan neighbourhood in Dhaka, which is a 45 minute cab ride away. On the other hand, the just the bank I use here, Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd, has over 300 ATMs in Dhaka. And withdrawing cash using them is very easy. Other questions about dresscode, the weather, sights to see and places to visit can be easily answered by past interns.

This would be supplemented by the forum which would have information about frequently asked questions, and places to stay in Dhaka, day trips around Dhaka, weekend trips around Bangladesh and other useful information. When a prospective intern contacted the bank with a question about the internship, they would be sent back an email with the list of ambassadors and the forum. Then the person could look at forum to get answers to some questions and if they wanted to ask more questions they could contact someone from the list. The list could be easily organised by country so that you could talk with someone in your first language, who was likely in a similar situation to you when they came to the bank.

One of the most important changes needs to be to the structure of the internship. Currently the bank is extremely accepting of interns who come for all different lengths and on starting on all different days of the week. This wastes the coordinators time, and prevents them from doing more important things like organising trips, and meetings for their interns. We are suggesting that the internship should start on a certain day every week, so that only one introductory presentation is needed each week.

For example:

• Week 1
• The Internship starts at 10am every Wednesday, they have introductory day, watch the Grameen videos, meet with old interns and their coordinator. Thursday they have their day trip to a branch in the morning and then discuss it and plan a weeklong trip for the following week. They then have the weekend (Friday and Saturday) to get settled in Dhaka and get to know the interns that they arrived with and ones that were already here.
• Week 2
• Sunday to Thursday they would go to a branch and experience in more depth what they saw on their day trip. 
• Week 3
• The following week, Sunday would a reflection day and planning for the coming week which would involve meetings with other Grameen departments and sister companies in the head office and visits to social businesses.
• Weeks 4-6
• At this point the interns hopefully have experienced most facets of the bank and can decide how they want to spend the rest of their time – a placement in a department / social business, more branch visits to new or struggling branches, etc.

Cheers,

Mike

Dhaka Fire

Some of you may have heard about a big fire in Dhaka which killed over 100 people last night. I just wanted to reassure you that I am fine. I did not actually know about the fire until someone asked me if I was ok. The fire was in Old Dhaka which is the opposite side of the city from me in a district called Nimtoli. If you look at a map of Dhaka that would be in the south, while I am all the way up in the North in suburb called Mirpur 1 and 2.

It is very unfortunate the way it happened though, and the streets apparently were too narrow which made it difficult for firetrucks and ambulances to respond. The fire was started by an electrical transformer exploded and then a chemicals shop on the ground floor caught fire. From there at least 7 other old buildings caught fire as well which did not have proper fire escapes. On every street in the city there are dozen and dozens of wires which hang from trees and buildings, so in some ways it is surprising that this sort of thing does not happen more often. Add in the fact that Dhaka is one of the most densely populated city and it is easy to see how something like this does happen.

PS - according to the BBC new report this does happen quite often, but that this was just an exceptionally deadly one

A Bike Ride through the Countryside

The Day after going to the tea estates we rented some bikes and headed down the road towards the nearby National Park, tribal villages and a big lake. The bikes were the typical Chinese one speed bikes that you see everywhere in Bangladesh. Also typical of most bikes in Bangladesh, they were falling apart. My bike’s chain fell off at least 15-20 times during the day, the seats were terrible (I still could not sit on a chair a whole day later), and the brakes only gradually slowed you down.

Setting out on our bike journey

Left to right: Frederica, Adrian, Ross, Josh and Julian

All in all, it could not have been a more authentic Bangladeshi experience. The scenery along country roads was amazing, the people were friendly everywhere. I think word of a group of white bikers spread through the area before us. As we approached a cluster of houses the children were always quick to run out to the road. Often you would hear “How are you?” shouted across fields at us. And everywhere people wanted us to stop and talk and take pictures of them.

An abandoned BP gas station

I see you!

Beyond the formalities of hello, how are you, country, and name there were very few who knew English. This made it very hard to get directions to the places we were planning on going. In the end we could not find the tribal village we were planning on visiting, and we did not want to be forced to pay for the park and the other tribal villages twice since we were planning on going the next day with a guide.

Stopping for some cha

So we were left with biking approximately 20km to a natural lake north of Sirmongal. By the end of the trip though I would not have cared if we had never found the lake, I was happy just to bike though the rural countryside. The scenery were beautiful, from flooded rice paddies, to hills covered with tea plants, a sheep traffic jam, and the wonderful little clusters of bamboo, metal and clay houses.

Traffic jam, Bangla style

Eventually by just asking “lake?” people directed us in the right direction. However, they would not let us bike all the way up to the lake though, so we had to pay a guy to watch our bikes for us while we were at the lake. The lake was a beautiful mixture of lilies and little bays that wound between rolling hills that typify the area.

Madhabpur Lake

We first walked up one side of the lake to a couple lookout thatch gazebos and up along the paths through the tea plants that lined the slopes of the hills. We quickly picked up a enthusiastic tour guide who ran around picking up lilies and pointing a tea plants.

The next trend is hair fashion

Eventually we managed to lose our guides and were able to sit down by the water’s edge on our own and enjoy the lake in peace. The rolling hills here are one of the few places in Bangladesh where you are able to sometimes see no one for 360 degrees all around you.

Lillis

We then headed back to our cottage, where we decided that we liked it so much that we chose to cram all six of us into one room, rather than be forced to sleep in Srimongal. The guide book described one of the hotels in the city centre as a place that sees a lot of “paid for” love. And after getting a tour we can confirm that description.

Cheers,

Mike

My Bengali Paradise

After our trip to Bogra, I was in no mood to hop on another microbus and drive another 300 kilometres, however I am incredibly happy that I got dragged along.

On Wednesday we had a 4 hour drive from Bogra back to Dhaka. After that I had to immediately leave to pick up my Indian Visa which meant another 45 minutes in an auto rickshaw in Dhaka traffic. I had a little trouble because I forgot my receipt that showed that I had paid for my Visa, but luckily the guy remembered me so he let me have it anyways.

After that it was back to the hotel where people were waiting for another microbus to go up to Sirmangal, the tea capital of Bangladesh. I was in no mood to get on another bus, but I was told there was space and that i needed to bring my stuff down quickly and get ready. Before I knew it I was on a bus hurtling through the now dark countryside. If you thought day time highway rides were scary, then don’t even think about trying a night time journey. It was a mix of giant busses with blinding lights, and rickshaws and mini busses with no lights, plus at night it is a lot harder to see the speed bumps and pot holes.

I was grudgingly packed on that microbus but now I am so very glad that I was. Once we were on the road we started calling hotels. The first wanted $40 US a night, so that was an immediate no. The rest did not have up to date phone numbers in our version of the Lonely Planet. Eventually we got lucky and Nishorgo Nirob Eco Cottage had space for the six of us for that night (Wednesday) and Thursday night for only 500 taka each ($7-$8 CAD).

When we arrived at 11pm the manager was waiting for us and there were three double rooms for us in two little cottages. We could not see much in the dark but there was a path between the cottages through a little forest and a couple small bamboo bridges over some streams. We were just happy to have somewhere nice to stay.

Nishorgo Eco Cottage

The next morning we had a breakfast of chapatti bread, some vegetables and potatoes, a couple bananas and some tea. The manager said he could give us a tour of the tea estates that afternoon, so we had the morning to relax and explore around the cottages.

The Riverside Gazebo

There was a little Gazebo which overlooked a bend in the stream that ran next to the cottages. It had an inviting ladder down to the river’s edge, and we set about trying to explore as far up and down the river as possible. It was not long before we braved jumping across the river, wadding through it and eventually even lying down and having a mini swim in it.

The view from the Gazebo

We went back up to the cottages and dried off while reading our books. The manager said we could have lunch and then he would take us to the tea estates. So we ate some home cooked Bengali food and then walked up the road a couple minutes to the Zareen Tea Estate.

All I need is a tan and I could pass as a local

The Tea Estate was incredible, they had a factory and an approximately 600 acres farm in behind. They employed over a thousand workers, they got paid only 48 taka (much less than a dollar) per day plus a food allowance, but could get more if they picked more than their quota. Our the hotel manager was explaining that it was not very much, but it was a steady year round job that paid no matter what.

The view from up in the Tea Estates

The tea estates were beautiful, it was hard to get a good picture on my camera, but the sheer size of them was amazing. We were even able to climb up into the bushes and see them pick the leaves up close. They keep the plants 34 inches tall which is the perfect height for picking. Then they pick the 3 newest leaves on the tops. Basically the newer the leaves the better the quality of the tea will be that they produce. So the newest but also the smallest are the best.

The perfect tea leaf picking height

The women who pick the leaves have a sheet which they tie so that they can hang

 it behind them from their head. Then they have both hands free to pick leaves and put them in the bag behind them. They were incredibly fast at picking the leaves. I cannot imagine walking up and down those slopes with a couple kilograms of leaves on my head, I had trouble just carrying my camera. Plus even while you are picking the occasional poisonous snake could bike your legs at any time, although apparently that happens only very rarely.

They were picking incredibly fast (she actually said she was slow, because the plants were farther apart here) and you can only kind of see, but she is carrying a big bag of leaves from her head

That night we headed into the town of Sirmangal and couple kilometres from our cottages. We managed to find a very nice Bengali restaurant, bought some bus tickets back for Saturday afternoon, and had a frustrating discussion with a couple hotels trying to find somewhere to stay for Friday night. In the end we were told to call back the next day when they would know how many rooms they would have available.

All the different types and qualities of tea

Some other pictures from the day:

The whole family came out to see us

The rice paddy on the way to the tea estate

After that it was back to our cottages for another night in our wonderful little rooms. After just one day I can say that this is definitely my paradise in the hills of Bangladesh. It is just too bad that they are full for Friday night and we have to move out. But if you are ever in Bangladesh, set aside a couple days and head to the Nishorgo Nirob Eco Cottage, close to Sirmangal. It is an amazing little place, great rooms, beautiful setting, friendly staff and for that good feeling in your belly - a portion of every room fee goes to protecting the forests here.

Cheers,

Mike

PS – We liked it so much that we decided to stay another night, even though that meant we had to cram all six of us into one room! They are going to give us an extra mattress, so it will be two people to each mattress.