After over 20 hours of travel from Toronto, we arrived in Dhaka on Wednesday April 16, minutes before midnight. The airport was eerily empty and quiet, not like the bustling Pearson we left.

We got through immigration and retrieved our luggage without any issues, and found our way to the exit to meet Lt.-Col. Elizabeth outside. Thankfully it had rained during the day so it was only 25°C, and we were spared the extreme heat and humidity.

At 1am in the morning, you’d be surprised how busy the roads were. The highway was backed up with various forms of transport, horns in all pitches honking non-stop. While stuck in traffic, I couldn’t help but notice the walls that were painted with colourful murals promoting a free, revolutionized Bangladesh. I had seen heavy traffic before in my previous travels, but nothing like this! CNGs and rickshaws weaved their way through traffic, through openings just wide enough for them to get past. There were no clear lanes – the width of the highway would have constituted 3 lanes (by Toronto standards), yet depending on the vehicle size, there would be four or five ’lanes’ at any given point. Big shoutout to the drivers in Dhaka who have super-spatial awareness to know where they can fit and when it’s “their turn”. Special thanks to our driver, Nurul, who picked us up that night and brought us home.

Just as we approached the entrance to our neighbourhood, excited to finally get home after all the traffic, Liz and our driver were surprised to see that the gates were locked! They had never seen them closed before. Thankfully, there was another entrance on the northern side of the subdivision, which was open for us to enter.

Despite living 6.5km away from the airport, we got to our quarters just before 2am. The wise thing to do would have been to get straight into bed to help adjust to the time difference (Dhaka is 10 hours ahead of Toronto). But of course, we got hit with a second wind instead. It was exciting to see where we would be living for the next 3 years. A spacious living room connects to the dining area and secondary living space, which then has doors to 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and a washroom where the laundry machine is. After 6 weeks of sleeping in temporary homes, we were relieved to finally make it to our long-term home in Bangladesh.

So rather than going to sleep, we spent the next 2 hours unpacking our suitcases, an attempt to expedite our settling in. At 4:30am, we were satisfied with what we had accomplished, and finally lay our heads down to rest. We would stay in bed for nearly 12 hours before getting up to submit paperwork to the office for our work visas.