I just don’t want to end the journey so I’m stuck in Bangladesh with just a few more pages to go. I’ve been reading Michael Palin’s Himalaya for a month and a half at least and it is time to move on. But before I do I was stuck by this business woman, Naila Chowdhury who has gone boldly forth, and made a difference.

Day 121 In early afternoon Ishraq takes me to meet Naila Chowdhury, a director of Grameen Phone, one of the great success stories to come out of Bangladesh. Naila, impressively built, with a strong handsome face, is, like Rubana, charming, accommodating and, I suspect, pretty ruthless when necessary.

It’s quite an eye opener to realise the practical impact just one mobile phone can have on all of the people, in just one village.

Yes, I will be sorry to end my journey with Michael Palin, but our association is not over quite yet. A fellow monk is sending me a DVD of his journey Pole to Pole which was a give-away with a Sunday paper the other week. She found it on the train.

Alston, where the second hand bookshop was having a turn out. There in front of the shop was a skip full of books! I felt like doing a funeral or something, instead I picked over them. Opening, having a sniff at that only-old-books-can-smell-like-that smell, then closing again. And this is somebody who doesn’t really like books that much!

Rural Rides, by William Cobbett is an English classic and Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais is funny and violent and quite free from any prudishness according to the Wikipedia entry. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, another skip casualty, can be downloaded free from the Internet.

Farewell books, it’s to the landfill for you lot. I did the best I could by spending a few moments cherishing and respecting them. Still, it was hard to let them go.

The photographs were taken on a mobile phone. Not great quality, yet they have a quality all of their own. Just like the skip full of books.

Quite by accident, the way so many good things come, I discovered Transport Direct, Connecting People to Places. Might just give this site a try since I will be on the road to Telford Priory on Saturday. Around about Stafford, if I remember correctly, there are some tempting short cuts across country. And again if I remember correctly roads around that part of the country have police speed cameras aplenty. Having grown to enjoy motoring at about 50 mph or so I’m not a candidate for being pulled over. However, a small slip in attention and the speedometer can rise alarmingly fast.

And I have been waiting my moment to mention another mapperly matter. This time the Ordinance Survey Select series. For those outside the country who have not walked hill and dale with compass and a soggy OS one-inch-to-the-mile map I can only say, you have not yet lived! With the Select series one can special order a map specifying the area you want it to cover. For example have your home in the middle of the map and all that wonderful walking country around you on just one piece of, very sturdy possibly water repellent, paper. Anyway, seems like a good system and I’m about to order one for a couple of my fellow monks living in Norfolk.

Sorry to say, postings over the week-end may be erratic.

Over in Afghanistan there is an incredible project under way: Over 140 laser systems installed 500m,1km and 5km in distance from the Bamiyan hills will project multiple layers of original Yamagata Buddha images drawn in striking colors. The laser images will be projected for 2 hours after sunset, once or twice a week.

The schedule for developing this project concludes mid June, 2009 with the BAMIYAN AFGHANISTAN LASER PROJECT 2009 Grand Opening.

Thanks to the Reverend who drew my attention to this.