Bangladesh

Bangladesh is the delta - the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna meeting in a flat, fertile, flood-prone convergence that has supported one of the densest human populations on earth for millennia. Dhaka is a city of twenty million moving through streets that were built for far fewer, with an energy that is either overwhelming or intoxicating depending on the moment. The Sundarbans mangrove forest in the south is shared with India and is the largest in the world; the Bengal tiger moves through it by water as much as by land. Sylhet's tea gardens in the northeast are some of the oldest in the subcontinent, the hills green in a way that has nothing to do with the delta below.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Sundarbans boat routes, Dhaka's Old City, Sylhet tea garden stays and the hilsha recipes that Bangladeshis in every city in the world cook on Fridays as an act of memory.