To Market to Market...

My friend, D and I went to New Market today.  It is a large market in Dhaka, and when I say large,  I mean LARGE.  I think we only hit a corner of it, and we spent easily 3-4 hours there.  First stop was the pet shops.  Oh my pet shops!  cages and cages of birds, bunnies, kittens, and puppies, and tanks and tanks of fish, turtles and snails.  And to all who are reading this, who know me well.... you'd be so proud!  I didn't buy anything.  Not even really tempted.  They even had my favorite birds (gouldian finches).  They did have a Mynah bird, and that would have been the one thing my husband would have let me get, but I didn't.  


Then to the regular market.  It was early and quiet at first. We browsed through china, pashmina scarves, kitchen gadgets, shalwar kameezes, saris, sporting goods, jewelery, shoes, and whatever you could think of.  It was awesome.  As we strolled,  and tried to ignore the Madam, Madam calling,  we did fine some treasures.  I am sure we got taken for a ride, and paid too much for things but D, drove a hard bargin, and bartered with the best of them.  3 pashminas for 1200 taka,  or 5$ each, seemed good at the time, until later we found out that was about double what we could have paid.  I paid 5 times the local price for a tea strainer.  Oh well, it was only a dollar.

It was a great day.  We had a local shopkeeper take us around and help us bargin,  and saved us much taka.  He spent hours with us, and was so kind.  We wanted to pay him, but he was happy just to practise his english with us.  Bangladeshis are really very sweet people.