Listen to a girl talking about her holiday in Bangladesh and choose the option A, B or C which best completes the sentences below.
1 When the girl visited Bangladesh
A not many people used to go there.
B there were no tourists whatsoever.
C the place was already a popular tourist destination.
2 She wanted to visit Bangladesh
A and she went there with another friend.
B to admire the wildlife.
C to see the famous forests.
3 The girl stayed at the hotel because
A it was a holiday and everything was closed.
B she didn’t feel like going out.
C women aren’t allowed out on Fridays in Muslim countries.
4 The guide they finally managed to find
A took them to his private villa by boat.
B was a guest at the hotel.
C was the owner of a travel agency.
5 While they were on the boat the girl
A changed her mind about what she really wanted to do.
B got frightened of the mangrove trees.
C got sick.
6 On the boat ride the girls
A could see a tiger swimming.
B didn’t see any wildlife.
C sang non-stop.
So, my first question is where did you go?
Well, I was backpacking through Asia, so the story takes place in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh. That's a really cool place to visit I'm sure.
Yup. It is. And their tourist slogan is actually “come before the tourists come.”
So you got in there before the rest of the tourists?
Exactly. It was a really cool experience because there weren't a lot of tourists and people were really curious and really friendly.
That's awesome. So what did you do while you were there?
Well, actually the reason we picked to go to Bangladesh was ‘cause we wanted to go see a Bengali tiger in the Sundaraban Forest.
Wow. Yeah, that would be amazing.
Yup. I've been obsessed with tigers since I was a kid, and I thought this is the perfect opportunity.
OK. So you went to go see the tiger. How were you going to see the tiger? You weren't just going to walk into the forest by yourself.
That's the funny story because we arrived, and we were four. But two of us weren't feeling well. I was just sick, and I didn't wanna go look for a tour guide. So I stayed in the hotel lobby all day with my friend, and our other two friends went looking for a tour guide. They went to all these different tourist offices and other hotels to try to find a guide. But what we didn't plan for was first it was Friday, so most of the offices were closed.
Really? On a Friday?
Yup. Bangladesh is a Muslim country and so they take Friday as their day of rest.
OK. I see.
And also it was some sort of national holiday for the next couple of days, so we couldn't find any tour guides.
Oh yeah. That would be really hard to book a trip during that time.
Yes. But the lucky thing was that because we were feeling sick and we were hanging out in the hotel lobby all day, we kinda became friends with the staff there. And they found out what we were doing and what we were trying to find, and they hooked us up with a tour guide.
Wow. That's great.
Yeah. It was really cool. It was actually the owner of the hotel who has a tour agency on the side, and he took us to his private villa where had a boat that took us to the Sundaraban Forest.
Wow. It's crazy that that hook up happened. That's very convenient.
Yeah. It was completely by chance, but it was such an amazing experience because we went to this beautiful home in a small village, and we actually got to go meet a lot of the villagers. And then we took this small boat, and we went deep into the forest. And I have to be honest though, once we got into the Sundaraban Forest, it's got the mangrove trees, which have their roots in the water, so you’re…
Yeah. I was just going to ask. I was a little bit confused. You were taking a boat into the forest. How does that work?
It's beautiful. I'll try to post a picture with this episode. But basically it's the mangrove trees that their roots go into the water. So you're going in this boat through these small passageways with big trees, and you're really close and it's small passages, and I started singing because I didn't want to see a tiger.
You didn't want to see a tiger?
I got scared. I didn't realize how close you were to the trees and how close a tiger really could be to you.
Yeah. And do these tigers swim? Could it come up to the boat? I guess tigers do swim, don't they?
They do. And they could have come, so we got a bit scared by talking to some of the villagers, so we sang a bit during the boat ride.
I'm curious, what song did you sing? Do you remember?
We actually sang “Oh Canada” over and over again because we couldn't think of the words to any other song.
That's hilarious. OK. Good. So in the end, did you see a tiger?
No. But it was still an amazing experience, and the Sundaraban Forest is absolutely amazing. So beautiful.
Did you see any other animals?
We saw a couple of different birds, but I don't remember the names of any of them.
OK. Cool. That's a great story. That's sounds like a really interesting experience.
It was amazing and one of my favourite travel stories.
Cool. All right. Good, well thanks for sharing with us.
KEY:
1A 2B 3B 4C 5A 6C
