Rohingya in Bangladesh.

An odd feeling came over me when I left Bangladesh. I was on the plane from Dhaka to KL and I spent several hours just staring out of the window looking at the night sky and then at the lights of Malaysia. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, after a month there.

I’m being completely honest here, so don’t shoot me down just yet, but as soon as I got on that plane, I felt relieved. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My time in Bangladesh clearly had an impact on me psychologically.

From reading my previous posts, it looks like I’ve done nothing but complain the country. That wasn’t my intention, but I can’t escape the fact I was unhappy most days, usually because I was ill or else stuck in endless traffic or just getting annoyed at how chaotic everything was.

The experience was completely draining and something I will never forget. It’s just such an incredible country. You can’t imagine what it’s like, even if you read about it.

There are so many people. The population is about 160 million, and the country is only 150,000 square kilometres. The government estimates that there are something like 1.2 million beggars on the streets. That’s more than the entire population of Timor-Leste.

The sheer scale of the poverty and desperation is something you cannot hide from. Men, women and children bearing every imaginable deformity, disability and disadvantage beg for money, especially at traffic lights. About 40% of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

For all the chaos and the confusion, there were a few moments I can look back on fondly. Driving from Cox’s Bazar to Teknaf in the far south, we came to a river and I could see Myanmar, just a short distance away. My heart jumped, seeing how close the two countries are and starting to understand a little about the plight of the 400,000 stateless Rohingya who are now in Bangladesh.

Visiting the Rohingya camp at Leda was extraordinary because the Rohingya really have got the short end of the stick, and yet at the camp, there were hundreds of children, running around, laughing, playing, holding my hand as I walked around. Leda is home to about 14,000 people and the conditions there are somewhat better than at the other unofficial camp, Kutupalong, but it’s still a camp and the people are still stateless after all these years.

Being out in the countryside and surrounded by endless rice paddies was such a refreshing change from being in the city. When I ventured north I visited a small farming community where the people lived in houses they’d made out of mud. There was no regular electricity, but they’d recently been provided with a kind of community centre complete with a solar panel and tiny television, giving them they’re only real chance to see the outside world.

I feel like I didn't really get to know the people of Bangladesh. I was always so busy running around from place to place. I spoke to people on the street, said hello now and then and communicated as best I could with sign language, but other than for my stories, I didn’t bond with people as much as I would have liked.

Another problem was that I just wasn’t eating much. I’ve noticed that my happiness levels seem directly linked to how well I’m eating. In Penang, I was bouncing off the walls because I was eating so much. Similarly in Bangkok, I cannot get enough of the food. But when I’m in Dili, I rarely get excited about what I’m eating, and so I sometimes experience this strange “hunger sadness”.

Arriving back in Bangkok on Friday, I felt a sense of peace. The city seemed so quiet, so orderly, so open and so spacious. It was bizarre because people say Bangkok is such a hectic city, but it really isn’t.

So, would I recommend other people visit Bangladesh? In short, I would, if only for the experience. It’s like nothing else and it really is a trip into the unknown. How many people do you know who have holidayed in Bangladesh? A lot of people go to India, but Bangladesh isn’t really on the tourist trail, and that makes sense because it is a difficult place to travel and it isn’t geared towards travellers in any way.

I would not, however, recommend spending too much time in Dhaka. The city was just too much for me.

But then what do I really know? Other people, like this journalist, go to Bangladesh and fall in love with the place.

This is how I got around in Dhaka, Bangladesh, pretty much every day. I took about four or five of these a day.

And one more for you:

Never in my life had I seen so many bananas in one place at one time. Here's a short video from Mokamtala in Bogra district, northwestern Bangladesh. I'm told the bananas go on for about eight kilometres on both sides of the road. Can you imagine how many millions of bananas that must be? More than I could eat, that's for sure. Apologies if the video makes makes you feel a bit dizzy in places.

One thing that will forever stay with me, haunt me perhaps, is the way people have stared at me while I’ve been in Bangladesh. It’s something I’ve never experienced quite on such a scale. I’m not the most well-travelled chap, admittedly; I’ve spent most of my time in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Timor-Leste while I’ve been out in this part of the world. Bangladesh is a different kettle of fish altogether.

I fully appreciate that I’m an oddball here. I’m tall, pale, blonde-haired and green-eyed. I accept that walking around by myself, be it in Dhaka, the capital, or elsewhere, I draw attention to myself just by being there. But the stares are something else.

I’ve been here on my own for about four weeks, so my feelings are no doubt compounded by the fact that I’m on a solo mission. Even though I’m here to work, I’m essentially doing it as an independent. I’ve had to travel around a lot, use public transport and walk from place to place. Everywhere I go, I’m gawped at.

At first I shrugged it off. I’d experienced it in other countries, although to a much lesser extent. Here, people literally stop whatever they are doing to stare at me. They stop dead in their tracks. They stop working. They stop eating. Their eyes follow me. Even here in Dhaka, the urban centre of the country, I’m a freak.

I can feel the eyes on me and when I look back at people, with their mouths ajar, they carry on staring. Initially I’d say hello, give people a nod or just smile, but after a while, it became exhausting. As it is now, I just end up getting into mini staring contests that I invariably end up winning after about 10 seconds.

It’s been making me go a little crazy. I walk around talking to all the people who stare at me, muttering things to them. “Yes, hello, have a good look. I’m here all week. Hi there.” I walk around saying things like that. I must look demented to these people.

I try not to get annoyed by people staring at me, but when it’s hot and I’m sweating and running around trying to make appointments, I sometimes lose my temper and get a little agitated. Occasionally I’ll make a gesture as if to say, “What?!” I hate myself for getting angry because I know I’m the one who is the guest here, but I can’t help it.

Sometimes I just want to scream. I can’t even go to the shop without experiencing this. It’s that feeling when you walk into a restaurant and everyone turns to look at you. Only they don’t stop looking.

People crowd around me to watch as I do menial tasks in public, like writing on a notepad or making a call or eating an apple. There is no sense of intrusion. When I stop a CNG (like a tuk-tuk), people will lean in to listen to what I’m asking the driver, and I always get a small crowd when I’m haggling the fare.

Now and then, people will come and talk me, or at least ask, “Your country?” This I don’t mind. It involves some kind of interaction. It’s refreshing. But mostly, people just talk with their eyes.

It’s perhaps my general personality which is the problem here. I don’t know how other people who have visited Bangladesh feel about this kind of thing. It isn’t that people are unfriendly; they’re curious, you know, and they see nothing wrong with following me around.

Again, when I’m in a good mood, early in the morning, I take it all in my stride, but as the day wears on and I have to rush from interview to interview, it all starts to grate. It’s also the fact that there are just so many people in this country. It is the most densely populated country on earth and there ate crowds everywhere.

The novelty of the crowds and the traffic wore thin after a few days. Plus the fact that I keep getting sick has really clouded my enjoyment of my time in Bangladesh. But, it has been a hell of an experience.