In Dhaka with a very heavy heart

The 1st thing I did when I arrived in Dhaka
was to check in with Roy to see if he's arrived safely home.
I remembered that he was going to have 1 day in Delhi, 
and then fly home to Israel.
His mother has been calling him every day and asking him to come home.
So he left Nepal, and bought a flight home,
cutting his trip shorter than planned.

But the 1st thing Roy replied to me after I sent the message shocked me beyond all my experience in all my travels...
The rest of the trip, I travelled with a saddened heart.

Especially as things were going on in Israel and Gaza,
things felt like they were shrouded with double layers of mourning now.
​
Israeli travelers like Roy and Jonathan were not posting on their socials knowing that it would be insensitive that they're showing how much fun they're having when the war was going on.
So i had no way of knowing how Roy was doing for the days to come.
We could only give him space to be with family, as it was a much needed time to be with them.

I was gutted for him too because just before he left, 
I made sure that he would go to find a piece of Pashmina scarf for his mom like he wanted to.
He was not feeling like it,
but there was a shop right there, so we went in to have a browse, 
and he chose one with the help with the shopkeeper who told me that I looked like a Nepali, and that he'd been many times to China.
I was looking forward to hearing from Roy that his mom liked the scarf he picked...
​But now...

I was just so gutted for Roy and for such a loss for him and his family...
It's the Worst that could happen... the worst for a traveler to come home to...
I'm truly sorry for their loss.
​
My heart felt like lead...

As I floated on the river, watching Dhaka from the water,
this place felt like Varanasi...
It felt as if I was in Varanasi...
An atmosphere of death and the beyond surrounded my heart...
I was floating beyond the liveliness and friendliness of Dhaka,
in a sadness of my own.

Strangely enough,
Dhaka had a large Armenian community here in the 1800s.
They left in the 1900s, and left behind an Armenian church and a lot of graves in the middle of Dhaka.
I read through the engravings carved onto the grave stones,
they were lovely words of farewell for the ones loved and lost.
A coincidental but much needed solace for how I felt that day.