Business in Bangladesh

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Here are some pictures of various businesses in Bangladesh, from small to large.

All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.

Businesses

Painting snail shells for tourists. (880k)

Fixing a shoe. (1009k)

Fruit vendor. (1004k)

7 layer tea near the tea plantations in Srimangal. (559k)

Kitchen. (794k)

Kitchen. (813k)

Small take-out restaurant. (1006k)

Small grocery stores. (977k)

Alley in Old Dhaka with fabric stores. (966k)

Taylor ironing. (592k)

Transporting colorful fabrics. (1099k)

Fabric store. (1070k)

Fabric store. (837k)

Barber. (959k)

They had set up their sewing machines on the street. (902k)

Making bread. (762k)

Bread oven. The bread dough is stuck to the upper part of the oven above the fire. The fresh bread is delicious. (738k)

Carpenter at work. (877k)

Stone work. (919k)

Metal work. (694k)

Alternately hammering the sickle in a smithy. (819k)

Hammering a sickle. (679k)

Working the bellow in the smithy. (841k)

Bicycle rickshaw maker. (957k)

Painted panels for bicycle rickshaw. (996k)

Salt extraction. Sea water is pumped into the fields and evaporated, leaving the salt. (995k)

Fishing

Fishermen in the Ganges Delta. (836k)

Fishermen in the Ganges Delta. (887k)

Fishing in the Ganges Delta. (622k)

Fishing in the Ganges Delta. (540k)

Fishing in the river. (694k)

Small fishing boat on Kaptai Lake. (744k)

Large fishing net in Kaptai Lake. (596k)

Hauling in the huge net. It must have been at least 100 m (330 ft) long. (742k)

Pulling the net on land. There were two winches that pulled in both sides of the net. (741k)

Winching in the net. (612k)

Fishing boats at Cox's Bazar with the shape typical for that area. (615k)

Fishing boats at Cox's Bazar. (683k)

Fishing boat at Cox's Bazar. (824k)

Fishing boat at Cox's Bazar. (865k)

Larger fishing vessel at Cox's Bazar. (679k)

Larger fishing vessel at Cox's Bazar. (758k)

Landing todays catch fish. (1062k)

Landing todays catch of shrimp. (937k)

Unloading the catch. (987k)

Hauling the catch to the fish market. (1079k)

Weighing the arriving catch. (895k)

Fish market. (1029k)

Crushing ice to use for keeping the fish cool. (919k)

Covering the fish with crushed ice. (901k)

Getting baskets with fish covered with ice for transport. (881k)

Big catch. (844k)

Fish are prepared for drying by soaking them in salt water. (1073k)

Preparing fish for drying. (1103k)

Fish drying operation. (1249k)

Fish drying operation. (994k)

Drying fish. (923k)

Drying fish. (1139k)

Drying fish. (1084k)

The drying fish are turned over regularly. (902k)

Piling up dried fish. (925k)

Fixing a fishing net. (1051k)

Fixing a fishing net. (1331k)

Floating Rice Market

The floating rice market. (549k)

View of the floating rice market. (890k)

View of the floating rice market. (647k)

View of the floating rice market. (933k)

Moving through the floating rice market. (738k)

On the way to the floating rice market. (551k)

On the way to the floating rice market. (603k)

One of the large baskets with rice. (831k)

Checking the quality of the rice. (744k)

Checking the quality of the rice. (797k)

Weighing rice. (938k)

Selling rice. (921k)

Loading the purchased rice. (956k)

Taking back the empty baskets. (538k)

Brick Factories

Smoking chimney of a brick factory. (619k)

Smoking chimney of a brick factory. (594k)

The mud is cut from the river deposit. (1143k)

The river mud is mixed with water to get the right consistency. (876k)

The mud is ready for making bricks. (1177k)

Hauling mud for brick making. (766k)

Getting ready to form bricks. (889k)

One of the workers forms a ball of mud in the right size, the other has a wooden form for the brick. (867k)

He has filled the form with mud and used a wire to cut the top. (863k)

Rows of freshly formed bricks. (1112k)

After the bricks have dried some, they are set on edge for further drying. (842k)

Rows and rows of drying bricks. (777k)

Bricks stacked up to build a kiln, getting ready for firing. (594k)

Top of the kiln. The covered holes are used to add firewood. (1077k)

Fire in the kiln. (937k)

Mountain of fired bricks. (686k)

Broken bricks are crushed in this machine. I assume the resulting gravel is used as building material as well. (977k)

Silk Factory

Mulberry trees, growing the leaves that feed the silk worms. (1219k)

Silk Moths (Bombyx mori, german: Seidenspinner, french: Bombyx du mûrier) laying eggs. (549k)

Silk caterpillars. (983k)

Gold-colored silk caterpillar cocoons. (817k)

The cocoons are boiled to kill the caterpillar and to loosen the silk strand. (576k)

Some of the cocoons are allowed to hatch so the Silk Moths (Bombyx mori, german: Seidenspinner, french: Bombyx du mûrier) can lay new eggs. These cocoons cannot be unraveled, since the silk strand is broken in many pieces. (538k)

Unraveling the silk cocoons and rolling the silk threads on drums. (758k)

Golden-colored silk. (768k)

A room full of automatic looms. It was very noisy in there. (739k)

Automatic loom to weave silk fabric. (735k)

Endless silk threads feeding into a loom to create long silk cloth. (755k)

Stamps to print the silk fabric. (854k)

Dyed and printed silk fabric. (941k)

Shipyards

Repairing a wooden boat. (734k)

In the shipyard. (702k)

Ship under construction in the shipyard. (746k)

Ship under construction in the shipyard. (793k)

Ships being repaired. (610k)

Welding in a small shipyard. (901k)

Sand and Stone Quarrying

Dredging up sand. (995k)

Hauling sand. (1074k)

Unloading sand. (1068k)

Hauling a large load of sand. (764k)

Unloading sand. (638k)

Unloading sand. (1215k)

Stone quarrying operation in Jaflong. The stones wash down from the mountains and collect in different places every rainy season. They are extracted and crushed to make building material. (862k)

Stone quarrying operation. They pump water from the river into the quarry to wash out the sand to get to the stones. (902k)

In this spot they found the mother lode, lots of rocks. (1231k)

Pump station. (1163k)

It looked pretty chaotic in places. (968k)

The workers carry heavy loads on their heads. (923k)

The workers carry heavy loads on their heads. (752k)

The workers carry heavy loads on their heads. (1098k)

Heavier stones are carried by two people. (1085k)

Offloading gravel. (807k)

Carrying gravel. (736k)

Carrying rocks. (795k)

Sifting larger gravel from the sand. (1228k)

Large stone crushing operation. The stones are fed in at left, go via the conveyor belt to the crusher, left center. The crushed stones are fed via another conveyor belt to the sorter, right center. The sorted gravel is conveyed to different piles, depending on size. (857k)

Larger stones are broken up before they go into the crusher. (1122k)

Carrying stones to the crusher. (707k)

The stones are fed into the conveyor belt, which feeds the crusher. (1099k)

Crusher. (1049k)

The crusher creates a lot of dust. (839k)

The sorter has mesh with different size openings to sort the crushed gravel by size. (1018k)

The gravel is sorted by size. (963k)

Small stone crushing operation. At this one everything is done by hand, no conveyor belts. (1030k)

Breaking up large stones. (895k)

Loading the crusher, right, and extracting the crushed stones, left. (1000k)

Loading the crushed stones onto the truck. (1044k)

Truck coming from India to haul back stones. (1054k)

Camp of the stone quarry workers. (1078k)

Shipping

Pottery transport. (1047k)

Hauling straw. (871k)

Timber transport. (539k)

Boats with wood and straw. (634k)

Unloading the straw. (801k)

Port of Chittagong. (760k)

Large freighter. (550k)

Offloading a large freighter. (545k)

Offloading a large freighter. (498k)

Offloading a large freighter. (516k)

Offloading a large freighter. (571k)

Nakshi Kantha Quilts

From the Nakshi Kantha entry in Wikipedia:

Nakshi Kantha, a type of embroidered quilt, is a centuries-old Bengali art tradition of the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, notable in Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and part of Assam. The basic material used is thread and old cloth. Nakshi Kanthas are made throughout Bangladesh, but the greater Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Bogra, Rajshahi, Faridpur and Jessore areas are most famous for this craft.

The colorful patterns and designs that are embroidered resulted in the name "Nakshi Kantha", which was derived from the Bengali word "naksha", which refers to artistic patterns. The early Kanthas had a white background accented with red, blue and black embroidery; later yellow, green, pink and other colors were also included. The running stitch called "Kantha stitch" is the main stitch used for the purpose. Traditionally, Kantha was produced for the use of the family. Today, after the revival of the Nakshi Kantha, they are produced commercially.

A large quilt takes several weeks to make. The women get paid only about $3 for making a quilt. The material, old cloth, is supplied to them.