BIM Trip Part 1

Here is my blog post for my BIM trip. My definition of BIM is - Bangladesh - India - Mauritius.

Basically, the main destination for this trip was Mauritius, my amazing hometown, commonly known as Paradise island. Because it was in the year end season, the flight ticket from KL to Mauritius would cost a lot. After some research, I managed to get a good deal passing through Bangladesh and India. My plan was to spend 1 day in Bangladesh, 6 days in the northern part of India, 17 days in Mauritius and another last 3 days in another part of India before going back to Malaysia to work.

I set off from Malaysia on the 12th of December. Now for all my trips, I only managed to do my packing at the last minute only. That is perfectly fine. However, the funny and dangerous thing I did was that I slept before I even started to pack. My flight was at 7.05 am and I planned to leave my house at 4 am. At midnight, I decided to start packing but however, I said to myself, let me lie down for a while and sooner than I thought, I was already asleep, without having set any alarms and without even packing. THIS IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING YOU GOT TO AVOID. LUCKILY, my housemate woke me up at around 4.45 pm as she knows I was going off. Without wasting another second, I jumped to my feet and started packing everything, making sure I do not forget anything extra important, especially for my camera gears. 

Finally I left the house at 5.15am. My housemate dropped me at KL Sentral from where I took the KLIA Express to reach KLIA. Journery was around 35 min, the price also is RM 35 haha.

Ready to rock & Roll

I guess 1 min is Rm 1 ahhaha. 6.15 am was the time I reached the airport and I was RELIEVED to know that my flight got delayed to 8.45 am. Usually people would go crazy on flight delays but that particular one, I really thanked God for that one. So, even when there are flight delays, it might prove to be useful to some people hehe. Despite the flight being delayed, there were still a lot of people at the check-in counter. 

I boarded the Biman Airlines plane at around 8.30 am. One thing about Biman airlines was that there information are sometimes confusing, when looking at the electronic ticket. When I checked the flight status online, the timing was not the same as my itinerary given and they did not even notify by email or SMS. Following this, I emailed their service desk and they cleared my misunderstandings. So, do not always rely on the itinerary, do check the flight status as well when you are travelling. Good thing that they had a good customer service, replying emails very promptly. Well, they better have.

Aboard Biman meal

The 3hour 50 min flight was alright and the meal was good too. However, I realised I forgot to ask for my friend's(Azimah, who was going to bring me around) address as the immigration will normally require an address. I thought maybe they would not ask, so I did not bother much. I reached Dhaka at around 10.30am. I had to wait in the long queue for around 45 minutes before finally reaching the immigration officer. Since there was no address on my arrival card, they asked me to write my friend's address. That time, I did not have a Bangladeshi sim and my Malaysian sim did not seem to work. Luckily I found a very helpful officer around there. He called Azimah and she gave me the address. I had to queue again but fortunately, the queue was less long.

I reached the same officer again. He was finally satisfied after seeing the address on my arrival card. He told me to get the address beforehand next time. I breathed a sigh of relief but it was only ephemeral when he questioned me about my Bangladeshi visa. Heck I dint have a Bangladeshi visa. My research about the Bangladeshi visa was made on wikipedia and wikipedia stated that I did not need to have a visa to enter Bangladesh. I kept telling him I do not need one but he kept insisting that I needed one. He asked his colleague and the latter also said the same thing. In the end, he brought me to his superior.

The superior seemed quite unsure of what to do. It seems like they themselves were not sure whether I needed one or not. Hence, he brought me to his senior who repeated the same thing all over again to bring me to the big senior. Well, I did not meet the big senior. I was in a room besides the big senior and they kept talking in Bengali and I could barely relate. After much talking, then came one officer who told me that they going to give me a transit visa, until my next flight the next morning. They insisted that I needed a visa. I referred them to the wikipedia page but they said that it was the old rule and apparently wikipedia was not updated. I would not be allowed to go in Bangladesh then but only spend the night at the airport. Of course I was unhappy but I swallowed it and accepted it. There was no use fighting. 

They gave me free lunch, which I guess was part of the deal when you do transit over there

The restaurant

However, the transit visa officers told me that I would not be eligible for that visa because my flight is too far. Then, they decided to put me on the next flight to Kolkata (which was supposed to be my next destination for the next morning) and I was happy with that one as I will not need to spend an unnecessary night at the airport. I had sufficient time to go and eat something (which they paid and this was very thoughtful of them) before I requested them to help me meet my friend Azimah as I needed to pass her a lot of things. I really appreciated there help to make me meet up with her. Even though it was around 10 minutes but it proved to be really nice. After that, I boarded the plane (Biman) for Kolkata. 

Bangladeshi Takhas

Azimah, my uni friend

Dr Mintupal from Singapore. He missed a connecting flight and he had to wait for another one. We talked a lot.

Getting ready for Kolkata destination

Aboard the plane, I already sensed a hostile environment. There were some people fighting over luggage. And I did not even have space to put my backpack in the cabin compartment. I asked the stewardess where I could put it and she bluntly replied, saying : "Just put on yourself when you sit". My backpack was already so big but I had no other choice. It was quite an uncomfortable flight and the guy next to me kept looking at my phone and this drove me crazy and scared if he might steal it or something. I then hid my phone and he stopped looking in my direction. The flight to Kolkata was quite quick. Will continue updating in my next post. :)

But, in brief, things that I learnt and took note was:

1. Concentrate on your packing and do not lie down for a 10-15 min sleep before a flight. If you have done your packing and want to rest a bit, remember to set your alarm.

2. Get your host's address always. Do not forget and maybe back up the information on your phone and on cloud storage. So goes for your itinerary and important emails.

3. Do not simply check wikipedia for visa issues as these are important and the most updated information would be from the embassy. So do give them a call.

4. Do not show your valuables(expensive phones, jewellery,etc..)  too much in public, it might attract attention.