Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives

To recover from the 2022 election, I booked a week-long tour of Sri Lanka and a small boat cruise of the Maldives from G Adventures.  Since I was travelling halfway around the world, I decided to knock off two additional countries by booking short stays in Bangladesh and Bhutan.  While I had tour and cruise mates in Sri Lanka and Maldives, I made arrangements for a private guide and driver for Bangladesh and Bhutan with Bangladesh Scenic Tours and Firefox Tours, respectively.  I recommend both companies.  

To get to Bangladesh, I flew from RDU to JFK on Delta, and then from JFK to New Delhi on Saudia Airlines (with a change of planes in Jeddah).  I overnighted at the New Delhi airport, and caught a flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh the next morning on Vistara Airlines.   From Dhaka, I flew to Kolkata, India on Biman Bangladesh Airlines, and then to Paro, Bhutan on Druk Air.  From Bhutan, I flew to New Delhi on Druk Air, and then to Sri Lanka on Sri Lankan Air.  As part of the G Adventures tour, we flew from Sri Lanka to the Maldives on Sri Lankan Air.  Then it was back to New Delhi on IndiGo Airlines.  I was scheduled to fly from New Delhi to JFK on Saudia, but I'll let you know how that turned out when I get to that part of the trip.   At this point, I'll just say that if you're making a connection in New Delhi, allow at least 4 hours.



Pictures and descriptions from the trip can be found here and here.