Last week, I had a three-day stretch that went like this: Zurich to Toronto to London to Bahrain to Dhaka. Never mind Lebanon the week before.
Then two days in Dhaka, a short flight to Sunmanganj, in northern Bangladesh, three nights there and back to Dhaka. Waiting for a flight to Jessore, which will be my gateway to the magnificent Sundarbans, an enormous mangrove forest by the sea.
On Tuesday, it's back to Dhaka and the next day, back to Zurich via Bahrain and London.
It's the cool season here and the fields in northern Bangladesh are no longer flooded. In a couple of months, the monsoon's waters will have given way to endless stretches of brilliant green and much of the country's vast rural population will be harvesting their crops - then waiting for monsoon.
Bangladesh is one of the countries most often mentioned as being vulnerable to shifts in climate. A one-metre rise in sea level threatens to wash away one-third of the population in the Sundarbans. But according to just about everybody, the people here have little leverage at the global climate negotiating table.
They're still flying about 80 people to Copenhagen and many senior climate bureaucrats have Copenhagen on their minds. But apart from making a moral case for rich countries and the dirty developing countries to cut their emissions, there's not much leverage.
Bangladesh is responsible for a very small percentage of the pollution that is affecting its climate.
And for some people I spoke with in the north of the country, changing weather patterns may not be so bad at all.
In Sunamganj, many are quite happy that there's a little less rain during monsoon and that the dry season lasts a little longer: more time to grow crops.
But for the most part, any evidence of climate change is more anecdotal than scientific. A senior UNDP official told me a few days ago that they're relying on the UN models. Let's hope (or perhaps not) they're right.
My first impression (and an opinion shared my everybody I've spoken with) is that climate change is not the most significant development challenge the people here are facing. At least in certain parts hugging the Indian border, they're more concerned about fortifying their raised villages and ensuring waves don't enter their houses and wash away their children.
They're building floating vegetable gardens, diversifying their crops and they spend roughly one-third their annual income raising the dirt their villages are built upon.
I'll probably have some more thoughts in the next week or so as I work on the three stories I have planned. Pictures to be uploaded too.
