There is only one main road in this city of five million people. Not surprisingly there are many traffic jams. I was stuck in traffic for some time before I espied the cause of this particular jam.
UN Road block
It is an armoured personnel carrier (APC) of the Bangladeshi army. I think it is a BTR-70 but I don’t remember the visual differences between the 60 and 70. I seem to remember that the BTR-70 was introduced as a cheaper alternative to the BTR-60, and there are surely more BTR-70s available, so I expect this is the one the Bangladeshi army picked up.
Bangladeshi BTR-70 with UN markings
These vehicles are in UN markings. They have just exited the double mooring jetty which is maintained by the Bangladeshi Navy. Presumably they are just back from one of the UN missions which Bangladesh has been engaged in.
From what I’ve seen on the roads, these vehicles drive around in pairs with the first towing the second. I don’t know if this is to save fuel or to keep maintainance down by just using one engine in two.
Oops! This laddie tried to steer through the delivery gate of the post office.
Unfortunately the driver in the following vehicle didn’t turn sharply enough out of the double mooring jetty gate and ended up face to face with a pillar of the post office delivery gate entrance. As it always does in Bangladesh, traffic piled up fast and there was a jam that extended a couple of miles down the road. This is the main artery of the country, with the Export Processing Zone and the port serviced by this road. Doh!
To be fair to the driver the road lay out is lousy. There is no crossing. The driver has to swing out of the narrow gates of the double mooring jetty, force his way across a lane of traffic that is seldom free, execute a hard right, and then turn into busy traffic in his direction of travel. It doesn’t help that Bangladeshi drivers are the worst in the world.