South-East Asia 1968 (5).

In Dacca, the capital, withdrawn in a hotel room, the whole procession of inquisitive persons who wanted to look at us, started again. "Bugger off please" we thought. Then it appeared that they were students, members of a cycling club, very friendly and correct.
"Tomorrow you must not go into the street with your bicycles", they told us. "There are massive demonstrations by students and strikes of the public transport".
We had to go to the Nepalese embassy to collect our visa, but we decided to postpone that for a day. We walked a little through the surroundings. At a newspaper building there was an enormous crowd, police and ambulance. It seemed to us that we had better go back to the hotel. Five students shot down, the newspaper building and a firetruck set on fire.
The next day: curfew ! Officially we didn't know anything about it, so we simply got on our bikes to go the embassy 8 km further away. Everywhere there were barricades in totally deserted streets.
Astonished the soldiers looked at us, but nobody said anything. All of a sudden an army jeep drove up and a nob stuck out a stick. "Ho, stop, do you have permission?" We had to go back to the hotel. There Henny called the police and asked for an escort, who brought us, heavily armed and nervously looking around, to the embassy. We got our visa from the counsel in person, his son had to search for the stamps for him because the staff had not been able to come of course. Back with an army truck, in the back between the soldiers.
We had to stay a few days in the hotel room, as soon as the curfew was cancelled we cycled out of town and so didn't see much of Dacca none of the thousands mosques, no bazar, nothing.
"Well," said the border official ,"you cannot leave the country."
Startled we looked at him."You have no road permit". "Why didn't they tell us that you need such a thing" we said angrily. But there is nothing you can do about it, the man could not put his job at stake, here, no job means hunger.
"In Jessore the District Commissioner can write it out", the soldier told us in a barrack where we had asked for advice.In the mean time he put Henny's helmet on his head with thick wavy hair, glowing with brilliantine. "Actually, you should have obtained one in Dacca." So 30 km back to Jessore. After having waited a few hours - they called Dacca for us - we got the road permit.
The next morning, a short distance from the border, we stopped again in the same tea stall. They still remembered it from the day before : piles of pancakes, baked for our hungry cycle stomachs. The little boy who helped his father, ran to and fro looked already radiant, yes, again he got our last change. Like old friends the border official helped us immediately to cross the border.

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