From elaborately detailed clothes and ornately decorated taxis to crowded cities packed bumper to heel and temple to mosque, Bangladesh is bursting at its seams. So much detail packed into such little area. An eclectic near 160 million people cram into a tight 55,600 square miles (144,000 km) of land.

Although Bangladesh has stunning sites from the world's most famous rivers, to the world's longest beach, ancient ruins and sacred religious sites, all uncorrupted by commercialized tourism, the visiting traveller is rare enough to cause a commotion on the streets.

The Capitol Dhaka is usually a tourist's port of entry. Here a hectic city center comprises a pattern of narrow and cramped streets between a sprawl of low buildings. Tourists eager to explore the detailed countryside will have to design their own and paths of travel.

Features such as South Asia's largest shopping mall stand in testament to recent economic growth. Beginnings of foreign investments are giving Bangladesh a needed jump into the world economy but it is also constructing a paradoxical society. At one end, steadily growing industries are trying to pull away from the country's vast majority of the poorest people at the other. City development gives visitors a tourist infrastructure within major cities but very little elsewhere.

From the Word Travels destination guide to Bangladesh copyright Globe Media 2011