From the frying pan into the fire

Chinese holidays and apathetic Nepali agencies meant that, after three days of looking for a flight out of Kathmandu (destination = anywhere where we didn't need a visa), we jumped at the last minute flight with Biman Airlines to Hong Kong. A short stopover in somewhere called Dhaka was part of the deal, but we gave it no real thought. At Kathmandu airport, all other flights were full, so we were surprised to find that our flight was near empty. Still, we weren't complaining and arrived in Dhaka feeling pretty positive. At the airport, we joined a couple of other tourists, who had done the run before, and paid $20 each for an overnight transit hotel. We were bused through the heat and humidity of Bangladesh's biggest city (for that was where we were) and were issued a room in a buidling with barred windows and a welded steel cage around it. A sign over the door told transit passengers not to leave the building. 70 people worked in the hotel and, at any one time, ten of them were in our room attempting conversation. We eventually locked the door and ignored their knocks. The next morning, we were told that our flight was delayed by eleven hours and so we sat in our room feeling like asylum seekers. We tried to ignore the fact that no one in the world knew where we were. At eleven that night, we were driven to the airport in a huge bus and ushered past the queuing locals. Our plane to Hong Kong, not even half full, left twelve hours late. We were simply happy to be escaping.