タイムマシンで30年前に戻った気分に

　バングラデシュと聞いて、まず何を思い浮かべるでしょう？過密な人口や度重なる洪水被害、人口の大多数を占める貧困層など、暗いイメージが多いかもしれません。しかし、バングラデシュは肥沃（ひよく）な大河ガンジス川を有し、古くから文明が栄えた地域でもあります。今回、旅の筆者が訪れたのは、首都ダッカから北へ車で数時間のマイメンシン。そこで目にしたのは、タイムマシンで30年前の中国やネパール、東南アジアなどの国々にタイムスリップしたかのような光景でした。

　今回の旅で筆者は、見どころを紹介するガイドブックに頼らずに街巡りをしようと決めていました。そこで、街中で地元の人に話を聞こうとしますが、英語がほとんど通じません。なんとか英語が通じる相手を見つけ、伝統的で興味深いところなど観光客が訪れたいと思うような場所を聞き出そうとしますが、返ってきたのは「バングラデシュ農業大学」でした。ガンジス川の支流ブラマプトラ川を利用した水産学研究所があるというのです。

　意味をはかりかねて戸惑う筆者でしたが、その言葉に従って大学へ向かいます。訪れたものの、やはりというべきか、観光客が楽しめそうなものは見当たりません。教えてもらった研究所も見当たらなかったようです。しかし、筆者はこの状況にがっくりと肩を落とすことなく、他のアジアの街でもよくあることだと分析します。というのも、住民としては胸を張って紹介したい気持ちが強いのか、街で「最先端」のものを見どころとして勧められた経験があったからです。

　気を取り直して街に戻り、ガイドブックを持たず通訳も雇わず、安宿に泊まって旅を続けた筆者は、数十年前に初めてアジアを旅した時のことを思い出します。目にする光景と自分の置かれた状況から、若い自分が旅を続けているような錯覚に陥ったようです。

　筆者によれば、もしタイムマシンに乗って過去に戻りたいのなら、バングラデシュの地方を旅するだけでいい、とのこと。ほんの少しですが、タイムスリップしたような気分が味わえるかもしれません。（の）

　Have you ever wished you could climb into a time machine and go back in time? You can. Just visit rural Bangladesh.

　Oh, you'll still see cellphones and televisions, and with a bit of searching you might find Internet access, but in most respects you'll be experiencing what it was like to travel in Asia 30 years ago, before we had Chikyu no Arukikata and Lonely Planet to tell us where to go and what to see.

　I couldn't help thinking about this during the three days that I spent recently in Mymensingh, a few hours' drive north of Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka. Guidebooks to this area probably do exist, but I never saw one. Instead, I just explored on my own, asking local people what was worth seeing and doing.

　That is, when I could find somebody who spoke English. A Bangladeshi in Dhaka had told me that up in Mymensingh, only one person in a thousand could speak English. Of course that was an exaggeration, but "How are you?" and "What is your country?" seemed to be about the only English phrases most people could produce. (In addition to having no guidebook, I had no Bengali phrasebook.)

　When I could communicate with somebody well enough to ask about local attractions, I usually found that he (in a predominantly Muslim country, a male tourist strikes up conversations with men, not with women) had radically different ideas from mine about what would be interesting.

　I've experienced this perception gap in other parts of Asia, too: The local people recommend visiting the newest, most modern places they can think of, and they can't imagine why we foreigners might want to see, for example, a traditional village where everything is still done as it was centuries ago. "You should visit Bangladesh Agricultural Uni-versity," I was told more than a few times. "It has a Fisheries Research Institute."

勧められた見どころへ

　Sure, why not? I hopped into the back of one of the hundreds (thousands?) of pedal-powered rickshaws and was chauffeured off to the university, said to be the largest agricultural university in the country. I explored the campus, strolled through the Botanical Garden, watched a handball game that ended with a near-riot by the supporters of the losing team, and answered "How are you?" and "What is your country?" a few dozen times.

　I also took a relaxing boat ride on the Brahmaputra River, part of which flows past the campus. (The main branch of the river flows farther to the west, its course having changed drastically during the Great Assam-Bengal Earthquake of 1897.) I even toured the little museum, which featured such exhibits as the first microcomputer used at an educational institution in Bangladesh ("to the best of our knowledge," hedged the accompanying sign).

　But I never found the Fisheries Research Institute. In fact, I never really found any worthwhile tourist attractions in Mymensingh, but the people were wonderfully friendly. Where else could you go into a bank to exchange large-denomination notes for small ones and be ushered into the bank vice president's office, to be served pound cake and ginger tea?

　Where else could you ask a railway station employee what time the next train was due and be taken to meet the station manager (and then to photograph him and a half-dozen of his subordinates)?

　On my last day there, I rode public transportation for about half an hour out of town and simply got off when I spotted an interesting-looking bazaar, having no idea where I was. (I found out later that I was on the edge of a town called Muktagacha.)

　I wandered around, taking photos and trying to communicate with the locals, who once again were as friendly as I could possibly have asked them to be, and then I gradually made my way back to Mymensingh.

　This was the way I used to travel when I first came to China or Southeast Asia a few decades ago: struggling to overcome the language barrier on my own instead of hiring an interpreter, staying in hotels which cost a few hundred yen per night instead of a few thousand (or a few tens of thousands), riding buses or walking instead of taking taxis -- in short, experiencing places instead of just putting a tick next to them on a "Been There, Done That" list. I got back to Mymensingh feeling 30 years younger.

　The next day I had no choice but to climb into the time machine and return to 2012.