BanglaAdventure2014: The Hindu village: Baba Loknath Temple, Barodi, Naranganj, Dhaka, Bangladesh

At 4 am we got up today to wave Sabbi off who is moving back to Sweden. Her flight was at 7 am and we said thank you, goodbye and good luck to her. We will be in touch again once we are back home. It has been amazing to experience this trip through her local knowledge and she has been taking care of us in the most generous way. This trip probably would not have taken place if it wasn't for her. We would certainly not have had such a close experience with Dhaka or Bangladesh without her.
Now we are in Dhaka without our local support... We are practically on our own!
(although Martin is still here :))

Around 8 am this morning we got picked up by Jahangir (our own driver for this stay) to go for a drive about 2 hours southeast of Dhaka to the city of Sonargaon. Sabbi recommended us to go here to find a deserted Hindu town. Steven and I are still traumatized by the drive to Khulna and was not sure about this trip. But we were convinced by Sabbi and decided to go.
The drive was completely different that the other one. The road had a separator between the two driections and each direction had two lanes. Still of course it is insane traffic of all sorts of vehicles and people but a whole other feeling when you can not risk frontal collisions. Our driver who we know quite well by now was also a much calmer driver than the one we had to Khulna. This one let other pass him and did not have the need to pass everything and everyone.

The drive was actually pleasant. We went through Dhaka in morning traffic which we know quite well by now what it is like. Then we went through a few small villages. We also passed a huge area where a lot of manufacturing is happening. This is most likely where companies like H&M, Lindex, IKEA and so on have their production. When we took off from the main road we were going on small small country roads where there where smaller villages and open fields where people live off of farming. Beautiful and tranquil.
We drove through Sonargaon and asked our way to the Hindu village. After a few misturns we found it. It was the templevillage for Lokenath Brahmachari (Bengali: লোকনাথ ব্রহ্মচারী), who is called Baba Lokenath or simply Lokenath, was an 18th-century saint and philosopher in Bengal.
It was beautiful! Colorful in both color and smells (incents)

About Sonargaon:
"Bengali: সোনারগাঁও; also transcribed as Sunārgāon, meaning City of Gold) was a historic administrative, commercial and maritime center in Bengal. Situated at the center of the Ganges delta, near the old course of the Brahmaputra River, it was the seat of the medieval Muslim rulers and governors of eastern Bengal. Sonargaon was described by numerous historic travelers, including Ibn Battuta, Ma Huan, Niccolò de' Conti and Ralph Fitch, as a thriving center of trade and commerce on the silk route. It served as the capital of Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, Isa Khan and the Baro-Bhuyan Confederacy.
The area is located near the modern industrial river port of Narayanganj in Bangladesh. Today, the name Sonargaon survives as the Sonargaon Upazila (Sonargaon Subregion) in the region"