What lingered in my ears on the main road was not the sound of car engines, but the sound of rickshaw drivers ringing their bells with force

Dhaka, the largest city in Bangladesh, is a tangle of noise and motion. Its main roads are never quiet—horns blare without pause, and the air swirls with heat and dust rising from the asphalt.

But in the midst of all that clamor, what truly lingers in the ears isn’t the engines. It’s the soft, rhythmic whirr of pedals and the sharp ring of rickshaw bells. These sounds echo through the intersections, weaving a constant thread through the urban chaos.

In Japan, it would be unthinkable—cars and buses dominating the roads without question. But here in Dhaka, cycle rickshaws move in proud, unbroken lines, riding side by side with cars. In fact, they often outnumber them. Their frames are painted in vivid, glossy colors that glint under the sun, adding bursts of brightness to an already crowded cityscape.

My eyes drifted toward the central divider. A slender young man was standing there, one hand resting on a pole, silently watching the flood of traffic. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he following the stream of rickshaws with his gaze, or quietly tracing the road ahead, imagining his own path forward? Whatever it was, there was something strikingly still about him amidst the motion.

Dhaka on Google Map

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