''Lonely Planet: Bangladesh'', Marika McAdam

Arguably one of the most enjoyable aspects of going on holiday for me is reading the guide book months in advance. Once I’m actually there I tend to forget about the inevitably limited page on ‘museums in Florence’ and just get on with it; the value comes beforehand. Hence on a rather bleak dark night in Athens, fan heater on to try to counteract the effect of no double glazing or insulation (count yourself lucky Britons, at least you build your houses properly), I’m reading about Bangladesh. In a little under 6 months I’ll be flying over there with my best friend from Geneva and her husband (a British diplomat – always useful in case you trip across a coup) to travel in a truck starting in Bangladesh, then through northern Darjeeling in India, and onto Bhutan. The original plan was to go directly to Bhutan, but this was followed by the discovery that in order to get a visa for the closed kingdom you have to give at least $200 a day to the government, which is somewhat prohibitive. So instead we’re journeying from the wetlands of Bangladesh up into the Himalayas for what will be a much more varied and no doubt eventful journey.

Bangladesh, the most densely populated country in the world, and most well known for floods and other natural disasters, clearly isn’t the usual Thomas Cook holiday choice. But ever since I first took a leap in the dark by going to live in a rural Malawian village (pre-Madonna) and teach English in my gap year, I got the bug for venturing into the unknown. Rather like colonial adventurers had maps of the world with large white areas to represent lands unexplored & uncharted, I have a map in my head of what I can imagine, and what I can’t. That was what made me choose to go to Uzbekistan on holiday a few years ago – could you get your head round what on earth that would be like? (For the record, it’s mostly flat and Soviet in feeling, with stunning medieval Islamic architecture and the most appalling food I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter).

This certainly isn’t the best guide book I’ve ever read; the opening sentence reads ‘’the highlight of Bangladesh is Bangladesh’’. I was surprised to find the author is a 24 year old recent graduate, which might explain the clumsiness of the writing; but it’s also quite heartening to think that maybe there are really cool jobs out there even for the inexperienced (whether I should pay GBP15.99 for the joy of reading their thoughts is, perhaps, a separate issue). But I’ve read enough to get excited – archaeological remains of ancient cities, Hindu temples and hilltop monasteries, the promise of good curry – and feel the inevitable disconcertion on browsing the 20 page ‘Maintaining your Health’’ chapter. Now there’s just the Greek winter to get through before I grab my combat trousers and Malarone from the back of my wardrobe.