Dhaka, Bangladesh (October 2018)

I made a short trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh to assist Good Neighbors with its effort to scale up the microcredit activities.

The short 3 night stay went fast with many meeting schedules and internal meetings. So my experience was limited to what I heard and what I observed while we were in transit.

One of the surprising discovery was the comfortable guest house where we stayed. It is owned and run by a Korean who has been living in Bangladesh for 16 years. The foods were excellent! They serve three meals a day plus daily cleaning plus housing, and charge $60 per person per day. It is not cheap, but the it was well worth. Also, this price is a discounted price from the regular price of $80.

The first day breakfast was like this.

At this guest house, I found a strange fish that has a hump on her head. She looked lonely but first strange.

The meetings were primarily with lawyers to learn about the regulatory framework on microcredit activities. They were mostly unprepared and their responses were not even consistent. Well... What did I expect from them?

At the building where one of the lawyers is using for his office, I found the construction incomplete. The stairs were incomplete and there was no guardrails. I was not sure if they can start using the building without finishing the construction or if they started using it without the formal permit based on bribe. But, it was really hazardous.

The most astonishing discovery was the terrible traffic jam on the street. Everyone was honking and every vehicle cut in. I could understand the situation. The roads are too little for the number of cars. Or, there are far too many cars for the roads. They were estimating 2 hours to drive 9.7 km when the traffic is bad. We were lucky that the double decker red buses drivers were on strike for one day, which eased the traffic jam a lot.

At one point, a lot of people were gathered. They were looking for day jobs.

Also the streets were full of bike rickshaws. They add to the traffic jam. But it was their livelihood. Who could stop them.

When we went to a coffee shop, we found it hilarious. It was a fake Starbucks. It is obvious, but it looked quite subtle.

One episode was that when we met with the leadership of Microcredit Regulation Authority, the Director scolded us for not giving him our business cards. I thought he was excessive, but so be it. Francis apologized but no need to.

I once led a leadership development training for GNI local staffs. At GN Bangladesh, there were two of the attendees: the new local country director Maeen and Francis who is leading the microcredit scale up program. It was quite joyous to see them in leadership and also in action. GNB has 300 employees with the annual budget of $4 million. So it is a significant operation. I wish them the best.

I was not sure if I could continue helping them in light of my tight schedule. - Jeffrey

Santorini, Greece (October 2018)

By any means, the most island of Greece is Santorini. The blue domed church in contrast with white buildings in parallel to blue sky and ocean in contrast with white clouds is just stunning.

Santorini's Greek name is Thera. Originally, Menoans lived in this island. They competed against the Mycenaeans in the mainland.

When the Venetians came and established churches, they stopped pagan religions and dedicated the church to Saint Irene or Santo Irini in Greek. Thus, the island became to be called Santorini.

About 3,600 years ago in 16476 BC, there was a major volcanic eruption in this island that was felt even 3,000 miles away. It was estimated to be as strong as 40 times an atomic bomb and 100 times the volcanic eruption that took place in Pompei. So you can imagine. It is recorded as the largest volcanic eruption that has ever been witnessed by the mankind.

After the volcanic eruption and subsequent implosion, a major portion of the volcano sank to the sea, thus creating a caldera in the sea. A caldera is a volcanic feature formed by the collapse of a volcano into itself, making it a large special form of volcanic crater. A caldera collapse is usually triggered by the emptying of the magma chamber beneath the volcano, as the result of a large volcanic eruption. 

So the sea we saw from the town was not the sea but the caldera. 

Santorini looks like a moon or the British Isle without Ireland. Because of the collapse, the west side of the island is high with cliffs and the east side is flat leading to the sandy beaches.

We arrived by a fast ferry that reminded me of the one we took to go to the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas.

The island's main town is Fira at the top of the cliff rising from Kamari where boat terminals are located. From Fira, houses and buildings stretch to the northern part of the main island, called Oia, approximately 12 km. The cliff view and the views of the white-washed buildings from the trail along the cliff ridges are spectacular and panoramic. It is stunning and plainly unearthly.

Santorini has mythical mythical blue color harmonized with white colors up in the sky as well as on the ocean horizon. 

Kristin and I walked up to the middle point on the way to Oia and came back down to eat dinner at Fanari, one of the famous restaurants in Fira. Due to low hanging cloud on the horizon, we could not see the complete sunset, but it was still breath-taking to see the sun that was setting into the water.  We walked back to the hotel and ate Baklava with vanilla ice cream to complete the dinner. How filling and satisfying the dinner was!.

The second day in Santorini was a city tour. We joined the excursion as an optional activity. We first went to the Red Beach. It had the red-colored cliff because of the iron contents included in lava which oxidized over time. 

We then went to one of the Black Beaches. Most of the beaches are with black sands and pebbles. Hence the name. We went to Perissa Beach and had excellent foods at one of the restaurant, called Poseidon Family Taverna (Restaurant). It happened to be my birthday and it was a great memorable celebration with a tasty grilled calamari.

We visited Santos Wines for the Santorini wine tasting. Santos Wines seems to dominate the market with a 70% market share. We tasted three types of wine.

We went to Oia for the sunset view, but it turned out to be very disappointing because of the low hanging clouds. After the long wait, many people were disappointed. We were glad that we saw the sunset yesterday.

The third day in Santorini was a driving tour on our own. We rented a small Pugeot car for 30 Euro, including the insurance. Not bad at all! We drove to the Red Beach again and Akritiri Archaeological Site, but we skipped the line. 

We entered into an unknown road and saw a lighthouse at the tail end of the Thera Island. 

Also we visited the Venetian Castle of Akritiri, another ruin.

Then we drove to Pyrgos to see the churches and look around some shops in the alleys. 

We then drove to Santorini Wine Museum, supposedly included in the world's top 10 best wine museums. The particular winery is famous for desert wines of kamariti and Vin Santo made of sun-dried grapes. After the visit, we did the wine tasting with four types of wine. The all-inclusive price was 10 Euros. 

We then drove to Kamari Beach and Monolithos Beach, but we found nothing much to see. 

Then we drove to Oia and Amoundi Bay where we were able to look up to the Kastro on the cliff where people are waiting to see the perfect sunset. The scenery was spectacular. Dining would have been fun, but the dishes were quite pricey and we chose to pass.

We returned the rent car early at 5pm and had dinner at Tabasco with Chicken Souvlaki on Pita bread, a giant size. Wow!!! We finished the dinner with Baklava with Pistacio ice cream. A perfect finish of the last diner in Greece. 

When will we return to Santorini again? Not sure. So, we enjoyed it fully. 

The next day, we flew out the following day out of Santorini to Athens and the tour ended. We stayed in Athens for several hours before we took our flight home to Chiang Mai, Thailand. - Jeffrey