Change of Route Permit

In order to leave Bangladesh by land if you arrived by air, according to my travel guides, you need a "Change of Route Permit" in addition to your bus ticket and VISA for the country of your destination. After turning in my Indian VISA application form at the Indian High Commission, Mark and I planned to stop by the Bangladesh Immigration and Passport Office one morning before heading down to do some sightseeing in Old Dhaka, to get my permit.

Mark has become friendly with a 16 year old, Keron, whose father works in one of the buildings near their apartment. Mark mentioned that we were going to Old Dhaka and invited Keron along for his company and his knowledge of the city. Leaving Mark and Erica's apartment on Thursday morning, we walked down the street and into the park, where we followed Keron back to the street through the bars in the park wall (luckily we both fit) to the cabs idling on the other side where we began our trip to the Immigration and Passport office.

The area of Dhaka that I have seen so far is very much a city. One of the main roads leading to the area of the diplomatic section of the city where Mark and Erica lives is Gulshan Avenue. Gulshan Avenue is lined with trees and the median is green with grass, but as soon as you leave this section of town the trees disappear and give way to buildings with high rectangular windows and soot blacked walls from years of pollution. The only color is afforded by the numerous billboards and shop signs in English and Bengali advertising mobile phones, skin cream and other conveniences of the Western world. The streets are filled with cars, bicycle rickshaws, and CMGs (little green vehicles that resemble tiny toy vans - although they only look like the comfortably fit the driver and one passenger - that run on compressed natural gas (CMG). The air is filled with the constant sound of honking horns and driving brings back visions of Vietnam with people walking out into traffic and cars, trucks, CMGs, and buses all vying for the same space on the road. The most disturbing part of it all are the children, people with obvious physical disabilities, and mothers with tiny naked babies who knock on your window and beg for money at almost every intersection, not easily deterred by shaking heads or feigned obliviousness.

At the Immigration and Passport Office, we paid the driver and followed Keron into the building. The guard at the front held his hand out to stop Keron, but I said, "he's with me" and walked through the doorway motioning for Keron to follow. We went up the elevator the the fourth floor, which opened into a large room with rows of plastic seats on to the right, a free standing counter-high table to the left and sets of barred windows to the far side of the room behind each, with a door in the middle, locked, keeping the bureaucrats safe from the impatient mob on the other side.

A Bangladeshi man walked up to help us and we explained that I was there for a Change of Route form. He pushed his way through the mob of men standing in front of the bars on the left and returned with a form, which he handed to me, explaining that I would need to fill out the form and submit it with a passport-sized photo and copies of my Bangladeshi VISA and entry stamp. Mentally kicking myself for leaving my passport photos at the apartment, which I had brought just for this purpose, I waited as Mark and Keron found out the location of the nearest copy/photo shop. Apparently, as in so many developing countries, such services had sprung up just outside the building, ready and waiting for people like me who arrived at the office under-prepared. Thanking the man, we made our way back outside and to the conglomeration of corrugated-tin-shacks-turned-shops where we could make our copies.

The first shop we came to had only a black and white copier and directed us to another shop a little further down where I could have my passport photo scanned in and printed out in color in lieu of a actual picture. All of this was made supremely more easy by having Keron there to translate our needs. At the second shop, we were greeted with a hearty "Hello!" by a man behind a desk at the back of the shop. The shop consisted of an 8 by 16 foot space with a concrete floor and walls of thin sheet metal. The desk held a computer and printer, while a medium-sized copy machine took up the rest of the space on the right-hand wall. Two small plastic stools sat to the other side of the copier, leaving barely any room for anything else. Besides the man behind the desk, there was another man on the far stool and a small boy whose job it was to make the copies.

The man behind the desk asked knowingly if I needed a passport picture and with my confirmation, went quickly about the business of scanning my picture into the computer, printing it out, and cutting it down to size. In less than five minutes, I had my picture. After taking my picture from him, I told the man that I also needed copies. He said something in Bangla to the boy at the copier, who finished the copies he was making and took my passport from me and began to make the copies I had requested. During all of this we had gained an audience of five boys ranging in age from 8 to 15 who stood tightly in a group and teased each other, presumably about who would approach us. Finally one of the boys grabbed another boy and brought him over to us, holding out his arm, which ended in a stub at his wrist. Obviously wanting to rile us rather than gain our sympathies, the boys then ran back to their group and stood in a giggling mass.

The boy at the copier quickly finished my copies and after paying what amounted to less than one US dollar, Mark, Keron and I headed back up to the Passport Office.

Back in the office, we again found ourselves one of the masses and joined the mob at the window to the left. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I finally found myself at the counter under Window B, where I handed my papers through the partition. The man on the other side of the counter, organized my papers, put a staple in the corner, handed them back through the window and said, "Window D." Relaying this information to Mark and Keron, we moved to the other side of the room and joined the 10-deep line waiting to be served at window D.

Forty-five minutes later, I again arrived at the counter, pushed my papers through the slot in the glass and received them back after a quick glance and a scribble of some kind on the front page. The woman behind the counter then turned her back to me. When she turned around again, she seemed surprised to see me still standing there. Not knowing where to go next, I asked her what I was to do, to which she responded, "Window B."

Back in the mob at Window B, alone now, as Mark decided to wait the ordeal out in the plastic chairs and Keron had wandered off to parts unknown, I waited again for my turn at the counter, wondering if I would get two staples this time before I was again sent off to yet another window. But surprisingly enough, when I finally arrived at the counter 15 minutes later, the man simply took my papers and said, "Come back Sunday."

Finally back out on the streets, we soon learned that it was too late to go to Old Dhaka because of the growing traffic, but Keron still wanted to show us around, so we gave in and spent the rest of the afternoon touring around the nicer parts of Dhaka followed at every turn by an inquisitive crowd of on lookers.