There’s a colloquialism in Bangla that I both may not have fully understood, and will not accurately relay.

“One does not stand under a ringing bell twice.”

A little more than halfway into the train ride, my cousin asked if I would consider taking a train again in Bangladesh. I couldn’t even laugh – I just said no.

Years ago, complaining that my father never took her anywhere, my mother told me that she’d once ridden a train in Bangladesh as a small child, and then never again. That stuck with me. She’s never even ridden a train in the US. Furthermore, she’s never gone sight seeing in Bangladesh – not once. Not once! Granted, she left Bangladesh around age 20, but still – she’s been back to visit at least 15 times since then, and it’s always been to our hometown and accompanying villages.

So when I told her I wanted to go to Sylhet with her, she acquiesced. My dad has no such desire to travel because he’s a pill. Turns out the pill has good points, but we’ll get to that. Traveling in Bangladesh without a Y chromosome is rough, to put it lightly. Bathrooms, stares, respect, and existing comfortably in a sea of men (there are very few women in public spaces) – if you can imagine, and you should try, none of this is easy or simple. I knew we had to commission a male cousin. I told the youngest, just married, cousin that we needed the help, and that his wife should come too. I also yanked a female cousin away from her husband and two kids for kicks. So, we were a party of five. Only my male cousin had ever been on a train. He tried to tell us what to expect.

Naturally, it was late. The trains in Bangladesh are not fast. And naturally, out of nervousness, I asked that we get to the station early. We got there 45 minutes early for a train that was an hour late. One horrifying bathroom, cup of train station tea, and ample wandering later, the train was about to pull up. He told us not to rush on – that everyone would rush on – and that it wasn’t necessary because we had reserved seats. This makes sense, but for some reason we still got caught in the wave, crushing each other to quickly get on to the train that was late and slow. Why is there such a rush to get on?

They oversell the seats. They sell more tickets than seats. This is why you see people on top of trains in Bangladesh. The ticket vendor offers you a discounted ticket and pockets the money. Official seats must be bought through an app, and they sell out fast. People still have to get places. So, they oversell the seats.

So we nervously, quickly, found our seats in the crush of people. In the milieu, one lady had her gold necklace grabbed right off her neck by a thief. Apparently such thievery is less now than it used to be, but obviously, it’s still around. She caused a scene for just a couple of minutes. Efficient. I already knew to keep my phone tucked carefully away, and that if I held it out or up, to stay vigilant. A mother with her young daughter asked if her daughter could sit on the ground between me and my mother’s legs. I gave her orange slices instead. Playing the game of keeping your heart protected while observing sadness just inches from you – visits to Bangladesh have taught me how to do that to a level of proficiency, not excellence.

When I decided on a train, I thought a pro would be that we could wander the aisles and stretch our legs a bit. Wrong. Oversold train means packed aisles and floors. Standing room only. And ours was a “less crowded” train, according to my cousin. We were lucky. So I settled into my seat for the longest ride. Ours was the very last stop.

Another pro, I had thought, was that given it was wintertime in Bangladesh, the weather would be pleasant and an AC car would be unnecessary. This is mostly true, and largely moot. This particular train didn’t even have an AC car. The weather *was* nice. Winter weather in Bangladesh is pleasant – it’s warm, but not hot, sunny – perfect for windows open, in theory. The issue is the dust. In many places, especially where there are literal sand/dust fields (they collect it for construction), a train with open windows is a recipe for dust inhalation on a scale maybe only bedouins are familiar with. By hour three, we were covered in a layer of gray dust visible on my blue hijab.

Finally, the beggars. Yes I’m quite familiar with the level of beggary in Bangladesh; this unfortunately no longer shocks me. But trains offer a veritable circus show of beggary. The show plays on loop. There are the limbless ones. There are the angry religious ones who throw pamphlets at you (they grab them back). There are the sweet religious ones who sing rhyming songs to tempt you into giving. There are the more plain tongued, maybe religious but probably not ones, who simply mumble about God and Islam and make you feel quite guilty, whether you gave or you didn’t. There are the blind who very much want you to know how blind they are.

Then there are the transgender women. They have the most unique tactic of all. They threaten to strip unless given money. My cousin had explained them briefly to us – the government does nothing for them and their families throw them out, so they are forced into an organized form of beggary. We had previously appointed my male cousin as the point of contact for all the beggars – not giving money was not an option, and he could decide how much and to whom. The transgender women board together and immediately start getting in people’s faces. They are quite organized. One briefly got in my face, and my mother pointed her to my cousin. In that ultra brief moment, I could tell she wasn’t angry at all, and she certainly wasn’t mean. This front of threatening and sass was just that – a front. This was the only way they could figure on how to piece together a living. What a world.

I had no desire to contract diarrhea from the train, or to munch on dusty things, so I passed on most snacks. Six hours wasn’t forever, not by a long shot. When six hours turned to eight is when the walking vendors holding puffed rice that they’d toss with spices and cilantro and lime started to look like better options. Eight hours finally turned to nine and this is when the aisles were finally open enough to walk down. I grabbed my female cousin to go see the food car. The food car was just a normal car with a tiny bar from whence the walking vendors were emanating from. It was like the place in video games where villains spawn from. I was in quiet hysterics by the time we de-boarded and threw my misery at my mother as soon as we got to our hotel rooms.

No, you don’t stand under a ringing bell more than once.