My parents have come to visit me! That is a good reason to do some traveling in Bangladesh. After picking my parents up from the airport in Dhaka, we traveled to Mymensingh--a city about 130 kilometers north of Dhaka. We visited a project there.

We traveled by train and the following pictures show life in and around the railroad. A great thing about traveling with my parents is that they see things that I don't--meaning what they see as unusual have become normal for me.

Here you see my father waiting for the train. The train was reasonably on time--only a half hour late!

This train is going to the center of Dhaka. The people sitting on the roof do not have to pay for a ticket. Unfortunately accidents happen regularly as people climb up and get down.

As the train stops along the way, so do the snack vendors! There are many people that earn money by selling snacks. Notice the right arm of the man selling popcorn.

Here I am bargaining over the cost of our ride in a battery powered autoriksja that will bring us from the train station to the project

Buying groceries for breakfast.

Yesterday, after a long train ride, we were back in LAMB hospital. It was good to be back. At the moment there is quite a bit of political unrest in the country. That is because of the upcoming election. The government and the opposing party(s) are not able to agree on how the elections should be organized. This means that traveling has more risks. Until now trains have always been safe, but that is changing. Last week the railroads in the north were sabotaged. Our train was a little late but without further incident. Traveling from one station to another was more difficult than usual, but still possible.

For the next 2 weeks my parents will be here at the hospital with me. Then I will bring them back to the airport. Till that time I will be working at the hospital. Right now it is not as busy because a gynecologist from England is here doing surgery on women that continuously loose urine. I do other surgery so that she can help as many patients as possible. This helps me and gives me more time and energy for my parents.