Nice Bangladesh photos

This simply cannot be "near Kurseong". It is obvious from their appearance that these are not hill-dwellers — Kurseong is in the Darjeeling Hills in North Bengal, now lying within the hill districts of West Bengal state. Kurseong lies at Lat 26.88 Long 88.28, at an altitude of just under 5,000 ft. in the Lower Eastern Himalayas — less than an hour from Darjeeling, which is at a higher altitude. Also, there are no river banks like this in the hills, as you can imagine.

These folks are almost certainly Bengalis somewhere in the tropical Ganges Delta, in either present-day Bangladesh or in India. The wooden fishing boats, with thatch canopies, are a giveaway – similar boats may yet be seen in the region, though many now have outboard motors. Accordingly, this scene is at least 500 kms south (as the crow flies) from Kurseong. Then as now, the people of Kurseong are primarily ethnic Nepalese — though they’ve long been Indian citizens. Ergo, they’d have slightly Mongoloid features, quite unlike the folks above, along with lighter skin tones.

My comments also apply to your other fotos labeled "possibly near Kurseong". But, hats off 2u on good detective work w.r.t. reading the storefront sign and tracking down the current trading status!

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Upon closer scrutiny, it’s more than likely to be in Bangladesh, indeed in the Gangetic Delta … poorly named since it also catches the outflow of another of Asia’s great rivers – the Brahmaputra (Tibetan: Tsangpo). Of the 5-6 biggest distributaries of these two rivers, all but the Hooghly are in Bangladesh. As you land at Dhaka by air, you’ll see what a flat, watery maze of canals, rivers and lagoons most of the country represents. Few areas of West Bengal (in India) have similar landscapes.

Also, these folks are clearly Hindu (note the uncovered women and clean-shaven men) participating in a ritual ablution, probably for a lesser Hindu festival. There certainly were ten-million-plus Hindus in what is now Bangladesh before the mass migrations (to India) of 1947 and 1971.

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