World: City and Why It Matters

Today we're going deep into one of the most magically insane cities in the entire planet, Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a population of 36.6 million people, making it the second most populous urban area in the world. So, what they're hitting here is a piece of suspension from a truck and they're making it into a machete that apparently will last for a couple generations. It's also the most densely populated city on the entire planet. You can't walk one meter in this city without brushing shoulders with another human. In the year 2000, there were around 17 million people. Now, over 36 million people, that's a doubling in population in 26 years. Estimates say that it'll hit 52 million by the year 2050. I've been to

Bangladesh in the past, but lately this country has gone through hardships with political unrest and a revolution with the old leader fleeing the country to India. Turmoil and uncertainty in Bangladesh after dozens of people were killed in clashes with police. The country's longest serving prime minister resigned amid the violence, fleeing to nearby India. Thousands of protesters flooding the streets, storming the prime minister's official residence today. Looting, taking furniture, dishes, food, whatever they could carry, led by students angry about a quota system for government jobs which effectively reserved many of those lucrative jobs

for people with connections to the prime minister's party. The protests ended Hassina's 15 years in office. A special tribunal has found the deposed prime minister Shake Hassina guilty of crimes against humanity and she's been sentenced to death. This is the third time I've tried to make this video. The first time I got here, there were military and police on the streets. There was a curfew. I wasn't allowed to leave the hotel. The unrest was so extreme. Then I came back a while later and the monsoon was so heavy, the streets were flooding. I couldn't film outside without almost being washed away. So here we are third time lucky.

Let's go deep into Dhaka Bangladesh. Welcome to Dhaka Bangladesh. Here we are. 36 million people. City is absolutely insane. Today we're going to explore. See what we can come across. Come down to this market and it's absolute chaos. Classic Dhaka here. Have a look. This chili here is ferociously violently hot. If you touch it, it's certain death. So, they've recently built an expressway over the city to alleviate traffic because it can take sometimes hours to travel just a few kilometers because this is the most densely populated city in the world. And when building this expressway that you'll see up here, there used to be a slum underneath which used to be a dead of

inequity. A lot of crime and prostitution and drug dealing and everything went on along here. But all those people were dispersed and now they kind of amongst the market here. So got to be careful of pickpockets and things. But people are very friendly and it is absolute pure energy here. This is the life center of planet earth. Oh yeah. Here's a blacksmith. Wow. Look at this place. You good? Oh wow. They're so hospitable. America. Uh New Zealand. Yeah. So they've got ovens here. They're heating up the metal. So here in Bangladesh instead of using the chopping board and a knife then they

use this kind of upside down piece of sharpened metal and it's actually used from construction site rebar here. Nice angle grinder. So here's a rickshaw which is a three-wheel bicycle that they take around like a taxi and obviously at the back here you've got the axle. I'll show you what they do with this axle here. Here's the axle. And what they do is they make construction tools out of them. There's more of the rebar from the construction sites and they just turn it into magic. Selfie. What's your name? Nick. Yeah. Nice to meet you. My name is Nice to meet you. Your name? My name is Jangid. I'm Nick. Nice to meet you.

Banglades little bit. So, what was your name, sir? My name is Iman. Mdmon. What's your name? Nick. Yeah. Nice country. New Zealand. Oh, nice country. And how old are you? 24. And is a Bangladesh okay country to live or not? Good. Now, Bangladesh country is very beautiful. But uh input opportunity, right? No opportunity. Good opportunity. I will go to UK, uh Italy, Spain. Well, good luck. Okay. Nice to meet you, Daniel. We're inside the market now and this is a local delicacy kind of that they do here called pan and it's like a chewing tobacco but it's got a bit of a twist.

We're here with Juel. Would you mind explaining how this works Juel? They take a bit of leaf like this and then make a corn shape from this and then they would remove the part and then stuff it with few pieces of beetlenut. It looks like wood and also tastes like wood. I don't know why people chew this. It's kind of like a stimulant, right? I've heard that the beetlenut is similar to like an enhanced coffee or something like that. The people working far away from home doesn't have access to the food all the time. For example, a farmer, they would always keep some pieces of bitter leaf and benlut and then keep them in the mouth for a longer time. So your brain

confuse you that you are not hungry. You have at least something to chew. Right? So when we are we start chewing bit leaf we start with the hard ones. You see they're pretty big and then when you when you your teeth are a bit fragile then you move to that one or even the small one and then the people who lose their tooth then they choose to this powdery version of this. Oh seriously? Yeah. So you start on this and your teeth get worn away and then you go to that. Yeah. So you literally see your future of chewing bit leaf and then these are the raw tobacco. Some people would just mix it with the limestone and the

uh betl nut together to chew because you know we have been smoking all our life people in Bangladesh and we have been growing our own uh tobacco and those packet things on the back door those are all perfumed tobacco with different kinds of flavor according to the preference of the people Jewel just said 200 million hungry mouths and rising need a lot of food. So the density of the bouquet the density of the population is just so insane. Imagine how many people are starving and hungry. Why you get this absolute art here. As I'm sure you all know, health and well-being is all about consistency. For me, that consistency comes down to a daily foundation like AG1, the sponsor of today's video. I've been using AG1

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prebiotics, and plant compounds designed to help fill nutrient gaps and support energy, gut health, and immune function in one simple scoop. I drink it every day, no matter where I am in the world, at home or in Bangladesh. Through my link, get a free AG1 sampler, plus free vitamin D plus K2 and an AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Massive thank you to AG1, a brand that keeps me traveling healthily. Let's get back to the video. Dose of reality. Here we've got the goats ready. And then over there where they're going to all these political posters here are

just for this market managing committee. So everybody's competing to be in the managing political role of this market. This isn't about the nationwide election. This is just for this market. It's absolutely crazy. So they got all the fish guts and everything here. They collect them from the market area. They boil the fish fat. Then they put it in these barrels here. And they sell that to soap manufacturers. Yeah. And they will be transformed into a soap that we use. What they do is they take old shipping pallets and they turn them into beds and allam. They turn them into beds and all kinds. The you can get one of these beds for roughly about $7. They've got a

reading desk here. Desk. Nice. Uh-huh. Before the prayer, we have to wash ourselves a certain way. And then if we dye our hair with the artificial dying from saloon or parlor, then maybe the holy water doesn't go through our beard and hair. So maybe the prayer would not be accepted. Islam prescribed the natural thing always. So we just pick up the henna leaf from the tree and then put everywhere we like because people in Bangladesh, they don't like the gray hair. So I'm 43 now. People would consider maybe I'm more than 60 or something because of my gray hairs. People also in Bangladesh has affections to towards the brown hair. You come with the western people and then we think the henna brings us closer to the brownish. So it's vice versa for

religious reason and also hide your age or the gray hair and then to make it a little bit closer to the western culture. They keep all the leftovers and you see the scales here from the fish. They're actually sent to China and used in women's cosmetics. So, they just use every part of everything because, you know, in a city of 36 million people, any scent that you can get is putting you ahead of somebody else. So, here we are in the train tracks. They've built an expressway over the top and you can see somebody's just getting a nice haircut. Asalamkum.

Wow. Nice. And so this is the main train track that goes in and out of Dhaka to the central station. And so what happens when the train comes then everybody just jumps off the track and yeah people jumps off because there are trains coming every 10 minutes or so. And also the salesmen you see on the active railway track they are selling fish, vegetables and fruits. They will just move their thing when the train is coming and then after the train disappears they would put it back again. I mean this is daily life. So these guys are currently replacing one of the concrete sleepers of the train track. They have to quickly do it before the train comes but they pull it out manually. They're all wearing plastic sandals and they're going to

fire a new one in underneath it before the train comes. So, the train's actually coming before they got the sleeper back in. So, hopefully it doesn't derail. Metafa the singer here. Okay. Nice brother. Thank you. Nice to meet you. I'm these are all fish scales here. The lady were complaining about that they don't get the money they deserve and they know they are sell sold for higher price when they're exported. There are a few middlemen who makes the money and they don't. How much for one of these massive bags? 65 takas a kilo 90 kilos in one of the bags depending on the size. And you've got to scale the fish and collect it and then dry it out.

Dry it, clean it. You see these makeshift slums next to the train tracks. They used to go all the way up to the train here. But I just saw a bulldozer go along here and just wipe any last bit of rubbish or anything out of the way. So they definitely can't rebuild on there. Asalam alaikum. Bedminton. Just behind the train tracks in one of the slums here. We met this lovely local woman and she's Do I need to take my shoes? No problem. Okay. This is how people live next to the train tracks. How many people live in this house? She her husband and a boy and father-in-law.

Five people. Five people sleeps here in this on all on the bed or on the floor. $50 for the rent of this house. The electricity is free, but you have to pay for your gasoline for cooking. 1,500 taka a month. No fridge. That's a luxury. Yes. In terms of uh living conditions in the slum, this is a nice house. I would consider it as a little bit upper class of the slum. have these amazing double-decker buses here in Bangladesh. The buses don't really stop. They just slow down. You got to jump in. How much does it cost? 20 da for two of us. That's one of the craziest things about Darker is people don't move for ambulances. So, they have to line up just like everybody else.

You can see the riot police behind me. That's a leftover from the times of the revolution. It's still a bit tense here and there's blockades everywhere ready to go out just in case. Quite a strong police presence around here, right? Wait a second. So, this is an electric rickshaw. Yes. Things have changed. You guys are in the your technologies advanced here. They used to when I was last here, they had to pedal, right? Yeah. We made our own Tesla before the original Tesla was made. And we call them Tesla in Bangladesh.

Really? Yeah. And since we have the flow of Chinese uh battery powered rule, they are ruining our life. They are everywhere on the highway and they're speeding and they go anywhere they shouldn't go, right? And then the car bus and everyone has to just follow the floor staying behind them. What are you having? Special masala malai tea. masala which is their secret and then you have to mix them all together. So you have a very thick tea. So I'm probably going to gain 5 kilos of weight from this tea. Sweet. Wonderful. No, it's not sweet. spice. Yeah, the spice and then the long time cooking of the milk. So you have the flavor of the original milk. The milk is good. We play cricket with New Zealand and we import a

lot of dairy products, milk, product milk from New Zealand daily. Anchor. Yeah. Thank you to the team. Okay. Nice to meet you. It's my pleasure, brother. Thank you. See you later. So this is one of the most uh popular places to get biryani rice dish here in Dhaka. It's busy. Is it good biryani? Yes. Very good. You're waiting long time. Yeah. How long? It is a famous shop in all the city.

Yeah. It's very nice. A lot of people have food. Delicious food. Okay. Wow. Oh, good luck. Your country, New Zealand. Yeah. Thank you. A moment of peace in the back alleys of Dhaka. So dark from the towering buildings, they've even got street lights in the middle of the day. Hello. Hi. Asalamaikum. Salam. What's your name? Uh, Leon. Huh? Mohammad Leon. I like your hat. It's nice. Yeah. Thank you. And look the last building if they have any emergency situation. How can the rescue team reach there?

There must be some fires sometimes in these areas. No, some fire or if we have earthquake. I don't know what will happen to the people and then the buildings are quite fragile and very old. The old buildings in older maybe more than 3 400 years old and Bangladesh is overdue for a big earthquake. Right. Yes. Yeah. Especially Dhaka is in a fault line fault zone for the earthquake. So we are in really vulnerable situation and not in only about the effects of the climate change. So this is another reason cuz you got rising seas as well, right? sea level rising and the effects of the climate change are so visible on the coastal lines of Bangladesh all along.

Few countries in the world are considered more vulnerable to the impact of rising sea levels and climate change than Bangladesh. In the most crowded city on earth by some rankings, tens of thousands who live in this slum settlement of Coral are so-called climate refugees whose previous homes were on land that no longer exists. When you have a natural disaster here, the casualties are so magnified because of the density of the population. You know, it's not a big country. You've got like over how many 200 million people maybe over 200 million people. And then the size of Bangladesh is not very big. So we have no options. People are staying wherever they are. That's where they had to leave because they are

forced by their life or environment effects of the climate change or you don't know and there's nowhere to run right no where can you go when you are staying here where can you go so I've come into this textile storage facility and as you know probably you've probably seen one of your clothing in your lifetime with the made in Bangladesh written on the label and these are the kind of places that you know the fabric originates from. It's just these rabbit warren of factories and textile plants. Danyad sir, thank you. Appreciate it. Check out this building here. This is an apartment. I don't know if this meets the uh earthquake safety standards.

Bangladesh faces horrific floods every year and you can just imagine when this floods. Is there a problem with like sewage? Well, if we have 3 four hours of heavy rain, then uh the street looks like a steam, water steam. When I was living in this area, often I had to come through the water like this. Seriously? Yeah, it happened few and it's full of like sewage and stuff. Sewage and everything. But I was never afraid of the sewage thing because there could be electric line just somewhere and that could be, you know, end of your life,

right? So it's like that's such a compounding of different. So when you have life changes, right? When you have life, you don't care about the sewage or what other things. Oh, he's a mute. He's a mute boy. So, how many people live in this room? Two daughters and the boy is the youngest. Is this the daughter here? This is the daughter. Asalamaikum. Nice to meet you. And what's the plan for the boy's future? Doctor advised her to bring a special school. We have some school in Dhaka but it's tough for her to bring two of them into two different school because his

school is quite far from here and then she also need to accompany when she's traveling to her school and that is also far and different direction. He doesn't go to a school anywhere reinforcement. Oh yeah, the reinforcement up because of the cracks. So if there's an earthquake here then and you don't want to imagine what would happen this building. Oh, this is 6,000 taka rent a month, which is the same as that lady that didn't have the fridge by the slum, right? Yes. Squat toilet. What was your name, sir? My name is Mjour. Yes. Me? Muhammad Lman Hussein.

Muhammad. His name is How is Dhaka? Dhaka is good. I miss Yeah. Long time. I'm born in Dhaka. Yeah. Good. Is it peaceful? Peaceful is also good. Yeah. Nothing wrong. Happy. We are happy. Lots of people. Yes. But friendly. It's friendly. Is working hard. They stay good. Everyone is like enjoy the life. No complain about the life. Beautiful. Yes.

Well, thank you. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Good luck. All the best. Take care. Few hours in the morning and few hours in the afternoon. And a building that we're going to go to the roof of in old Dhaka here. Oh wow. I think it's like eight floors maybe. Okay, so we were just on the rooftop and we met this lovely family and they invited me for lunch which is so kind of them. So how is life living here in Old Dhaka? It's good. but a bit polluted. The environment pollution, air pollution causes a lot of but all over we love old town because we uh love each other very much. We I live in uh joint family uh since uh 14 years. My mother-in-law, my uh his

brother, his brother's wife also live here. Wow. Lovely. So, it's a good really nice community. And how is Bangladesh at the moment? Cuz there's been some problems politically, right? Last government is not good, right? And the old prime minister fled to India, right? But she just got the death sentence, but she's hiding in India, right? You didn't like her. Nobody like her. She destroy our country, right? Destroy. She destroy our country. And uh during her time nobody can um tell their opinion.

She was very controlling right controlling and no democracy. You think that the hard part is over and hopefully the future is positive. Inshallah. I hope so. Right. But you're not sure, right? Okay. I hope so. This next moment is the situation is great. Thank you so much for your time and I wish you good luck for everything. You will join with us. I really appreciate that. But we've only got 2 hours of sunlight. We have to go to the river and things. So yeah, thank you so much. So we've arrived at the river and this is the Burrianga.

This is one of the most incredible sites that I've witnessed on this planet after traveling to many countries. There's just something here that's uh you can't really put your finger on. It's very special. The Brianga never sleeps. It is always vibrant like this. millions of people and if all the rivers of Bangladesh were roads then Buruganga this place would be the main bus terminal of the country because this station river station connects all parts of Bangladesh. Every corner you can travel with uh two and then there are thousands of people living on the other side of the river but they would be coming to Dhaka for their daily work every day.

Therefore, these country boards are used for. You see, there are hundreds and thousands of them everywhere. Just sitting here having some spicy tea. What is this? It's a masala tea. Very strong. Ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and then cloves, bay leaf all together. Quite a long time. I'll explain what we just witnessed. But first of all, get on Jules's motorbike and go somewhere else. The riot police are starting now because things are getting out of hand in the city. So you can see the streets have changed

significantly. High-rise buildings. This is where the country is essentially. Wow. There's military there. What are those military doing? For the safety, security of Yeah, because this is the head of the country because of the unrest. Yeah. Right. It's like heaps of soldiers around. So, yeah, this is where the country is essentially run from the financial district or the diplomatic area. It's completely different vibes here. So this is Dhaka, the city of 36 million people currently going through a very historic moment with a revolution, unrest, political, riots, police presence, military on the streets. It's uh this is the financial center of that city and of the country of Bangladesh. This is where all the

money and everything happens here. What was happening at those protests? It was absolute pandemonium. Three protests going on at the same time. One was demanding a big bridge to connect Burishal with Bola district to connect that corner with the main land of Bangladesh and that will definitely give us a milestone to achieve more financially. And then there were few more protest next door. And one was about one of the folk singer were criticized and arrested or something happened to him because he was talking about the acceptancy and their role in the country not to politicize them like censorship kind of like that. Yeah.

It's all different areas of the political spectrum and people making demands. Right. Exactly. 15 years of last government people in many way were deprived that thing. So they have a lot uh demand a lot of demands for changes for positive changes for the people of the country. So that's what was the student were asking for. This is really the aristocratic zone of the country where we have the diplomatic missions and the affluent communities of Bangladesh. And you also saw how densely populated the old daga was and some area we walked through. They were like the most densely populated area on earth. I love it how you're saying that was really densely populated but right behind you is an

insane intersection. For Dhaka standards, this is actually relatively calm, right? Well, this is boring. I mean, if you are talking to a Dhaka guy, this is really boring. No people, not enough traffic. I mean, traffic is something where you are stuck for several hours. That's what the traffic is in Dhaka. Otherwise, no, it's pretty relaxing. And are you hopeful for the future of Bangladesh? Yeah, of course. Never give up. And uh we are hopeful that we will get through a good election and then good government and there would be a lot of positive changes to govern the people and the country because people in Bangladesh they are nice very

hardworking and you can make them whatever you want them to do they would do. So when you have 200 million of good people and then if you can transform them into a good way and it can be a wonderful country it can also be a hub. Look at Singapore. Look at other countries around this uh Bangladesh and then what we don't have in Bangladesh. We have people, we have good land, we have everything. Just we need good leaders to tell us which direction to go and then we are ready to accept anything. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Of course. It's a pleasure. A huge thanks to Juul. You can see he's an absolute legend. I'll leave his information below. If you ever want to come to Dhaka or Bangladesh as a

whole and do any kind of tourism, he's your guy. As you can see, he's extremely knowledgeable and kind. He will show you the best of the best and whatever you want to see, he will tailor your trip around that. As you can see, the people of Bangladesh are so kind and so hospitable. I love this country. I've been here a handful of times at least and I'm sure I'll be back again in the future. Much love, Bangladesh, and I hope your future is a bright one. Thank you so much for watching and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good