When I arrived in Dhaka I went to a cell phone store nearby and asked if I could use a phone. I called him, the people at the store described where I was, then he came and retrieved me. He took me to a hotel (Hotel Givenci Int. 76/A, Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue Farmgate, Dhaka 1215 Phone: +88029113947, +88029133312 www.hotelgivencibd.com) which was in Farmgate in what I would consider a good central location within the city.
I had just arrived after the bus ride and Tanvir raised the issue of politics, which was fine with me and following from our other conversations. He explained the history of the Bangladeshi political parties to me for the first but not the last time, and he made the story interesting and understandable. We made some plans for the week – I would meet other Wikipedians, and they would attempt to organize a meetup, and we would talk otherwise. I felt very well received and was anxious about coming because Tanvir had recently had a family problem, and I was unsure whether I should still visit. That night Tanvir again told me that it was good that I came, and said that he was quite sure that he would be leaving the country to go to school in Germany in a few months as he had been wanting.
Let me say something about the hotel – one night I gave them laundry and they said they would return it the next day. The next day it was not returned, so I went to sleep. At 11:30pm I was woken to receive my laundry, and the delivery person insisted that I pay cash immediately and that I could not just collect it the next day. I have experienced this kind of behavior from South Asian hotels before, but this was a rather nice hotel, and I was hoping to at least be not disturbed at night. I gave laundry again another day, and requested that the laundry not come back to me late at night. The next day I did not get my laundry so I went to sleep. In the morning at 5am I was woken to collect my laundry.