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My driver, Rasel, snaked through the crowded railway station, holding my train ticket above his head. Awkwardly I chased after him, feeling every bit a bumbling giant with my bulging backpack. “You’re very fast,” I told him when I’d caught up. “We must be sure,” he responded, checking and double-checking the ticket and the train car. “No much time.” He ushering me onboard. My seat was at the far end, a lone one in the corner by the bathroom. He pointed towards the open window and said "be careful." In broken English and gestures explained that sometimes people dangle their friends over the side to snatch items. He implored me to text him when I got to Srimongol safe and again when I was on my way to Dhaka. I promised I would and shook his hand. My cousin, a gym teacher at an international school in Dhaka, had been concerned when I told him I wanted to go to Srimongol, a tea region in the northern part of Bangladesh. He’d never been outside Dhaka and had never taken the train. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he’d asked. I’d assured him I’d be fine, that I liked trains, and that I was sure people would be friendly. “That’s what worries me,” he said. As I waited for the train to pull away, I watched the people ambling between the four rows of tracks. I saw a teenage boy with one leg hop across the tracks and up onto the opposite platform unaided by crutches or a walking stick. On the far side of the tracks, a man was walking a calf on a rope. And every few minutes someone carrying a 5-gallon tupperware tote on their head would appear with bags of snack mixes, filled with ingredients I couldn’t identify. I texted my boyfriend back home, “this place is bananas.” Minutes later we pulled away and the chaos and noise of the city gave way to the quiet and green of the more rural areas. I noticed the shadowy silhouettes of men sitting atop the train in the watery fields we passed. In the distance, kids played crickets on the dry patches of earth. Goats wandered close to the tracks, unconcerned by the heaving iron centipede. I only had a few chapters left of my book and thought I’d finish on the ride, but my compartment companions had other ideas. For the whole five hours on the train, people wanted to chat. Bangladesh sees so few visitors, particularly those who are as tall and blonde as me, so everyone, it seemed, was curious and had questions. They asked: “What brings you to our country?” and “How do you find the food?” and “Are people being nice to you?” Others pointed out sites (“Sister, that land is Indian place”) or offered wisdom (“Sister, my brotherly advice, secure your phone”). At one stop an elderly woman with red teeth boarded and leaned on the seat before me, her head resting on her hand. She drank me in for a while before asking a question in her native language. A young boy nearby translated for her — she’d asked if I was alone. I said I was meeting a friend. She stared at me a good while longer and then asked the boy to translate again. He said she wants to know if I wanted to come to her house for dinner. She has two sons, she added, grinning broadly. I thanked her and said I was expected elsewhere. Another young man asked for a selfie before disembarking. He looked handsome in the snapshot. I looked scary and washed out in the patch of sunlight streaming in the cabin. “Very good,” he declared. After getting off the train, he called through the window, “Sister, anything?” while gesturing to the rows of stands selling packages of chips, fruit, and cookies. When I said no, he smiled and said “good travels.” When I finally reached my destination, pleased with myself for getting there and delighted with my conversations, I pulled out my phone to see a text from my cousin. “Everything go ok?”. “Everything was fantastic,” I responded.