SLEEPING

Accommodation is more expansive in Dhaka than elsewhere in Bangladesh, but it’s still cheap by international standards. Almost all midrange and top-end hostel offer large, year round discount rates (up to 50% off) and most of the time this will be volunteered before you’ve had a chance to ask. However if you’re booking online or by phone, you’re less likely to be offered a discount. Fortunately, it’s rare that Dhaka hotels are full, so you can safely just turn up and find something to suit. The highest concentration of budget and midrange hotels in the area extending from Inner Circular Rd down to Old Dhaka. There aren’t any top-end hostel in...

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TOURS INFORMATION

Guide Tours (TEL,988 6983; www.guidetours.com 1st fl, Darpan Complex, Dit ll circle, Ghulshan), the company with best reputation, offers half-and full-day tours in and around Dhaka. Half-day tours cover sadarghat, Lalbagh Fort, the Liberation War Museum and other sights, and cost Tk 1500 per person. Full-day tours include Savar of Sonargaon and cost Tk 2300 per person (minimum four people). Guide Tours also runs day trips to a pottery village near Savar and overnight stays in a village. Bengal Tours (Tel-883 4716, www.bengaltours.com, Block A, Banani) offers half and full day city tours. The half-day tours focus on Old Dhaka while the...

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ACTIVITES

Rickshaw Rides One of the best ways to see the sights of Dhaka is by rickshaw. The going rate is about Tk-100 per hour. Rickshaw-wallahs who speak English can generally be found outside five star hotel,but charge more and expect a tip. You can also approach a tour company to organise a sightseeing on a rickshaw. River Trips There are several companies offering trips on the rivers encircling Dhaka. Contic (881 4851; mail@contic.com; House 183, Rd 69 Gulshan ll), a rive-cruice specialist with an elegant boat, the Fleche D’or, cruises along the Turag river(west of the city) down to the Buriganga River. Contic cruises get excellent reviews Swimming Non-guests...

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NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

In 1963 the Pakistanis commissioned Louis Khan, a world-renowned American architect, to design a regional capital for East Pakistan. Due to the liberation movement and ensuing war, the National Assembly building wasn’t completed until 1982. the building often feature in books on modern architecture, and is regarded as among kahn’s finest works. It’s huge assembly of concrete cylinders and rectangular boxes, sliced open with bold, multi-storey circular and triangular apertures instead of windows, and is probably only considered attractive by fans of grim’70s architecture. It is not usually possible to approach dome building too...

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LIBARATION WAR MUSEUM

This museum (phone: 9559091, 5 segun Bagicha Rd, adnission Tk 3, 10am-5pm, Mon-Sat), chronicling one of the 20th century’s more deadly wars, is spread out over two floors and has been put together with enormous pride and respect. The display on the 1971 war of the Independence is arranged chronologically, with English and Bengali newspaper reports, photographs and various memorabilia. The displays start off time enough but gradually become more graphic before culminating in a room full of personal item, a large pile of human skulls and bones, and some very disturbing photos of rotting corpses with bound hands being eaten by dogs and vultures....

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