Last week I went on a bit about my new job and the more pleasant working environment. But what about moving to and living in Dhaka? It's fair to say that living here in the capital does have a number of advantages compared to the isolated rural setting of my placement, and I'm not just talking about the beer though that's certainly part of it.

As my family and friends who came here at Christmas will testify, Dhaka is one of the world's dirtiest and most polluted cities. It really isn't pretty to look at, and the impact of the city's current beautification project can be compared to putting a nice ribbon on top of a compost heap. There is rubbish everywhere, and there are people who live in and off the rubbish, sifting through it to find plastic and metal etc. that they can collect together and sell to recyclers. Both Mike and I have a real problem with the way people just dump their litter in the street, but they can do so knowing that someone else will pick it and possibly earn some money from it. You could argue that littering generates income for some of the poorest of the poor, but I really don't think this is the solution to this country's economic and social development.

Beyond the rubbish and the smells, one astonishing aspect to life here is the noise. As soon as the city starts to wake up in the morning until the wee small hours of the night your ears are constantly assaulted by the traffic, street sellers and other sounds of industry and activity. The flat I share with Sarah and Mike (see photo) is in a residential area but even here you can't escape from the traffic in the road a few blocks away and the cries of the sellers in the street offering anything from live chickens to plastic buckets. The problem with the traffic is that everyone is constantly beeping their horn, and I do mean everyone. From I can make out there seems to be a system that is in my mind very similar to the way ski slopes work.

The basic principle when you're coming down a slope is that the person overtaking or higher up the slope is responsible for avoiding the people below or in front. In traffic terms this translates to no one ever really looking in their mirrors before manoeuvring, and hence the vehicles behind constantly beeping to make sure those in front know they're there and about to overtake. This doesn't just go for cars either as pedestrians get beeped too as they walk down the essentially pavement less roads. And the same rules of responsibility also seem to apply as Bangladeshis never look before attempting to cross a road. Seriously now, they just step off the curb and THEN have a look at what's likely to kill them in the next few seconds. If they think they can get out of it they keep going, otherwise they make a hurried step back to the relative safety of the rubbish where the pavement should be. And while we're on the subject, I'll also never understand why they seem in such a hurry to cross roads, risking life and limb as they actually stand in the middle of road with trucks and buses screaming past them with barely inches to spare. From what I've seen when they're actually at work or wherever it is they wanted to get to, they just hang around, drink tea and gossip. I mean, what's the big hurry for?

There are though several very positive things about being based in Dhaka. The first is easy access to decent food with various local supermarkets all full of fruit and vegetables even out of season as well as tinned goods and the occasional goodie. Compared with BRIF where I was pretty much limited to the odd pasta dish when the daily regime of rice, dahl and curried everything got too much, I can eat healthily and enjoy the sort of food I want to eat everyday (allowance permitting). Certain items can be harder to find than others, and their availability does seem to depend on what fell out the back of a container ship in Chittagong that week. To give you an example, a few weeks ago you could find soya milk pretty much anywhere but this week you can't find it anywhere for love nor money. While I'm on food I also have to mention that when cooking feels like a chore I can just go to an expat club or one of the numerous foreign restaurants that are actually quite good. I went out for a meal with some friends the other week to a Japanese restaurant and it was excellent, and I've also been introduced to Korean cuisine which I quite like too.

If I had to pick one big positive difference it wouldn't be the food, or the air conditioning, but actually having a social life and meeting people. I can now play touch rugby every week on a Friday, and this week I started playing 5-aside football with the Dhaka Donkeys. In my first 18 months here I never really had any proper ladish mates with whom I could talk nonsense over a few beers or have a kick about with. The other VSO volunteers are a good bunch, but they're mostly female and the other guys aren't really what I'd call lads either because they're of a different age or a radically different culture like the fellas from Uganda and Kenya. Through playing rugby on a regular basis and meeting some new lads through football I feel my life is that much more balanced than it was at BRIF. Another advantage is that you meet some interesting people, like on Friday when 2 new lads came down to play rugby with us. One of them was a fitness coach, the other a physio, but both working for the Bangladeshi cricket team respectively from Australia and New Zealand! While I'm loving playing some regular sport I'm less keen on aching all the time as my body takes it time to adjust to the increased demands being made of it!