Red Zones. Blue Zones. And a Green Zone.

Except in Valentine's Day cards, red is a universally ominous colour. Let's face it, it's the colour of blood. It's vocabulary is limited to expressions like: Uh-oh... Stop! Wrong. Do not enter. Danger! Trouble seems to follow it wherever it goes: into ambulance lights, stop signs, communist flags, referee's cards, illness-inducing tides... So, I figured I was justified in assuming that the red used to colour-in patches of Bangladesh's uniquely shaped map was not indicating that the weather was fine in those areas or that watermelons had come into season in Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajashi, Jessore and Shatkhira, respectively. These last two districts make an open-faced sandwich out of Khulna, a place I needed to be in approximately 6 hours.

I admit, I have been in a lot of bizarre situations in Bangladesh, and this was definitely one for the list. I was in a sort of hole-in-the-wall cum bus ticket office in- ...well, come to think of it, I have no idea. In a traffic circle somewhere in between Ishwardi and Kushtia. I was 6 hours into what was quickly becoming a journey to nowhere, listening to the TV spit out grave sounding statements that matched the grave looking map in which the two districts that were the bread under my destination were painted red. Red of Uh-oh. Red of Wrong. Red of Danger. The rest of the country, in contrast, was a delightfully royal blue.

I was in the company of my Mom and her lifelong friend, Mikes, who is on her first visit to Bangladesh. While I was frantically assessing the situation in my mind - the time, the various transportation options (and lack there of), the non-existent phone network and, of course, the blaring red patches - they seemed quite relaxed. Perhaps they were considerately trying not to add to my stress load by appearing calm, or perhaps they are both colour blind.

Fortunately, we were not alone. We were the company of around 10 Bangladeshi men, few of whom knew each other, but all of whom had banded together in a familiar and relaxed way that I have only ever seen among Bangladeshis. Strangers here talk to each other as if they'd known each other their whole lives. It's quite endearing, and a nice contrast to the rest of the time they spend shouting at each other.

We had all been brought together by the stoppage of our Dhaka-Khulna train. So accustomed am I, it seems, to the pace of things here that the train was stopped for a good hour before I even bothered to ask if anything was the matter (in my defense, the train had done nothing BUT stop since we left Dhaka and in 5 hours we had traveled only 150 km). Yes, something was the matter. The train had been stopped due to BDR-related unrest (read: mutiny) some 20km down the tracks. This dreaded news was delivered to me by a fellow passenger in a casual tone more often reserved for comments about the weather.

My flat mate had already sent me a menacing message to say the 'uprisings are spreading', so I suppose I wasn't totally shocked to find out that this is what had marooned us indefinitely in our current location (the magnificent Ishwardi Railway Station). We got off the train and hung out on the platform for a while, stretching our legs, drinking a coconut, making use of decent and stationary toilet facilities, buying towels from wandering salesmen and entertaining the crowds. Eventually, my Western ability to worry about things kicked in and I began to consult people as to what we should do. It wasn't so much that I minded being marooned in a train station in the middle of nowhere, but that we had booked a three-day tour of the Sundarbans and the boat was leaving that night! From Khulna! Which, thanks to the roundabout route of our high velocity train, was now actually further away than it had been when we left Dhaka that morning at 6:45am.

The Sundarbans is undoubtedly the most important (and some would argue 'only', although it wouldn't be me) tourist destination in Bangladesh. In 28 months, I had somehow been incapable of finding my way into its 6,000 sq. km of UNESCO World Heritage mangrove forest. And now, on the brink of my one and possibly only opportunity to do so, I had Bangladeshis trying to console me in their charmingly evasive way by ensuring me that everything was okay because there was a hotel we could sleep at in Ishwardi (and if that didn't work out, half the train had offered to have us as guests in their house). The fact that I was hell-bent on getting to Khulna by 10pm seemed only to amuse them.

After an hour or so of hanging about, I instantly retracted every complaint and criticism I have ever made about Bangla (as my teacher Pulok could attest, I complain quite a bit - it is a pretty frustrating language at times) and became eternally grateful that I understood enough to decipher that people around me were hatching escape plans. We had been told that buses were not running (the phone network was shut down, so information was hard to come by) but one young guy had gone on a reconnaissance mission and come back with a plan to get to Jessore. I was torn between waiting to see if the train ever got going, or risking it in the world beyond the station walls... Eventually we decided that we wanted in.

And so in we were. Along with the 10 or so other Bangladeshi men who had also decided to leave the train on its tracks and try their luck on the road, we grabbed our bags and headed out in search of a tempo, a small, lawnmower-like truck, that could take us to.. well, wherever it is we were going. I had no idea.

That was when we rolled up to the bus-ticket office with its TV and its map of Bangladesh that was in the processing of being crimsoned. That was when I was frantic, Mom and Mikes were looking cool as cucumbers (not literally, it was stinking hot and everything with sweat glands was working overtime) and our traveling companions were discussing how to infiltrate the red zone. For a people that love to yell at each other, there was a surprisingly calm demeanor to their exchanges. Exchanges that I was not included in, not (I don't think) because they thought me incapable in any way, but because the Hospitality Handbook of Bangladesh requires that locals take care of everything for bideshis, while the bideshis sit and drink tea. So I sat, and observed, and wondered how mutiny, red zones and serious transport complications could merit not one raised voice...

At first we were told there would be a bus to Khulna. Then it was that there would be a bus to Jessore, and from there we could find a bus to Khulna. Then it was that there was no bus at all. At this point, I had decided we should just go to Kushtia, the nearest major town. I knew the Mayor and some other municipal officials there from my work visit, and if we got stranded there at least I knew there was somewhere we could stay.

Just then, a Jessore-bound bus rolled up and most of our team decided to squeeze in. Our choices were: squeeze into a bus that had people sitting on the roof and others hanging out the window, or take the slowest tempo in the world. We opted for the roomier of the two and hopped in with only one escort: Mister Muslim Man, or MMM as Mikes had dubbed him.
3-M and I had gotten off to a dubious start. Our relationship began with furtive glances exchanged across the aisle of the train, broken occasionally by passing waiters in white jackets serving tea in china cups, young boys flogging peanuts and other snacks and a parade of beggars. 3-M's looks felt heavy with disdain, and I imagined him to be the typically condescending Muslim man that was offended by my heathen ways (I was, after all, wearing jeans with my sleeveless -gasp!- kameez and orna). And then, the most miraculous thing happened: I asked him something, and he broke out into the most glorious smile. A 400watter on the room-lighting scale.

And so, after a very slow ride through some tobacco fields, we found ourselves in Kushtia being led by our smiling 3-M to a Khulna-bound bus. By this time, I was almost convinced that the trip must have been canceled and that we needn't bother going all the way to Khulna. But I couldn't phone the tour company to find out, as apparently landlines were shut down as well. So getting on the bus seemed like the only logical option. We were told it would take 4 hours to get to Khulna. It took 5, and what we were not told about those hours was that they would be the bumpiest and noisiest of our lives. That's what you get on a public bus in Bangladesh - a good eye opener into what travel is like for most people here.

We rolled into Khulna at 10pm to find out that the tour was still on, but that the boat was having engine trouble. The comedy of errors continued for the next three days, but any complaints I had were inevitably muffled by absolutely beautiful experiences in what truly is one of the world's most extraordinary eco-systems.

The Sundarbans is home to many incredible plants and animals, including the Royal Bengal Tiger. Seeing as my room was plastered with pictures of tigers when I was a little girl and my first school report ever was on tigers, I was just a wee bit excited at the prospect of sighting what I consider to be the most beautiful animal on earth. Unfortunately, the tigers kept to themselves, but it was neat just knowing that they were out there somewhere in the incredible green zone we had finally made it to.

Equally elusive was a foray into the thick of the forest by way of small canals. On the first day we were promised 'mangroves so close we could touch them'. On the second day, after a failed attempt at a mangrove-touching exploration at low tide, which left us examining mud-skippers for 30 minutes while we tried to get ourselves unstuck, we were promised a trip into the 'dense jungle' the next morning. On the third day, we were promised nothing. 'Dense jungle' had mysteriously disappeared from the lips of our guide. I was disappointed, to say the least, but I mustn’t complain. I did get to swim in the Bay of Bengal and lie around on a deserted beach in a bikini, which, in a country where exposing my shoulders makes me feel criminally rebellious was quite a fantastic event.

We are back in Dhaka now, and the city has returned to it's normal, royal blue state. I was, however, saddened to find out that a relative of one of my close colleagues was a victim of the violence. It was a tough reminder that Bangladesh's occasional brushes with violence are not as far removed from me as I would sometimes like to think.