Things to do in Dhaka

Landmark · Old Dhaka

An unfinished Mughal fort begun in 1678, with a tomb, a mosque and a hammam inside a walled garden above the river.

Local tip: Go early on a weekday — by late morning it fills with school groups. The tomb of Pari Bibi in the centre is the reason the fort was abandoned, and the story is worth reading before you come rather than after.

Culture · Kumartuli, on the Buriganga

The pink 1872 palace of the Nawabs of Dhaka, restored as a museum, facing the river from the old city.

Local tip: The building is the point rather than the collection. Combine it with a walk east along the riverfront toward Sadarghat, which is where the old city still functions as a working port rather than as a heritage site.

Neighborhood · Puran Dhaka

A three-hundred-year-old lane of Hindu artisan houses, one shopfront wide and four storeys tall, in the densest part of the old city.

Local tip: Walk it on foot and start early. Rickshaws cannot easily get through and that is the appeal. The conch-shell workers the street is named for are still there. Around Durga Puja it is transformed and worth planning a visit around.

Food · Old Dhaka — Nazira Bazar, Kazi Alauddin Road

Haji Biryani, Nanna Biryani, Star Kabab and the kacchi that Dhaka argues about with more heat than politics.

Local tip: Kacchi biryani here is made with mutton and cooked with the rice, which is the distinction from the pulao you get elsewhere. Haji's is small, cash-only and closes when the pot is finished — go by eight in the evening or not at all.

Nature · Between Gulshan, Tejgaon and Rampura

A rehabilitated lake and canal system through the middle of the city, with walkways, bridges and a water-taxi service.

Local tip: It is the closest thing central Dhaka has to a park and the walkways are genuinely used for running in the early morning. The water taxis across the lake are cheap, quick and a far better way to cross this part of the city than any road.

Landmark · On the Buriganga, Old Dhaka

The river terminal where hundreds of multi-deck launches leave for the southern delta — one of the busiest inland ports in the world.

Local tip: Go at around five in the afternoon when the evening launches are boarding and the whole terminal is in motion. Almost no foreign resident of Gulshan has ever been, which is the point. Take the small ferry across to Keraniganj for a few taka and look back at it.