Get it on -- Chittagong!

Through our travel reading and bookstore browsing, we've stumbled onto a group of westerners who are obsessed with, you guessed it: rickshaws. Rickshaws are a subject that both M and myself hold dear. They are part of our daily existence (especially in Bangladesh). They are often a point of contention, and sometimes violence, but we love them still.

For the record, we'll call bicycle rickshaws "rickshaws" and autorickshaws "Autos." The human (without machine augmentation) pulled carts we'll just refer to as HPCs.

I finally got over my issues with letting a 60-year old man with no shoes, pull us and our big-ass bags around town on his three wheeler -- M hasn't.

Here, rickshaws are much, much more prevelent than in india. It must have something to do with the dearth of human capital. They jam every street and lane and dusty place with space. They carry everything. They are also adorned with the coolest shit ever.

Rickshaw pullers like to accessorize, and with limited resources, they are dependent on local artists to custom them and craft dope accoutrements. This is similar to airbrushing your custom van, or tricking out your 64 impala with hydrolics, but at a more realistic scale for Bangladeshis (and Indians, Pakistanis and prolly all southeast asian cultures with roads and bicycles).

Vinyl stiched siding, tin and acryic paintings, wood and scrap metal sculpture and frilly plastic. Some are beat, some are beautiful. When we sit in traffic, we drool at the pictures and patterns and colors. Abstract peacocks, little muslim boys praying, Bangla film stars all bloody and gun-toting. This stuff makes me want to personally scrape off all of the boring 2-color, politically correct slogan bumper sticker crap that we see in Berkeley (just kidding, Diane). That type of mobile-creative expression has nothing on RICKSHAW ART.

In Dhaka, we went overboard and bought a ton of stuff. We visited Bicycle street two days in a row and accosted rickshaw accessories dealers. We bitched and bargained and made a fuss over what most Bangladeshis consider to be the most inane shit. Imagine a crowd of speed idled, art crazed space aliens, purchasing all of the toothpaste tubes they could get their eyes on... no don't do that. But that is kinda how we come off.

We're in Chittagong now and sadly, no, we're not taking orders. All of the stuff we get we are mainlining on our apartment walls. We are even thinking of getting a three bedroom, so that we can hang more rickshaw art. Don't even try to mess with our obsession -- we are riding high on this rickshaw art euphoria hog. NO SLEEP TILL WE HIT REHAB, YO!

... or untill M's parents take away the keys to the UPS account.