I have mentioned before that our journey in Northern Bangladesh was very close to India.
This is India. The village that you see on the other side of the river is in India, the children are Bangladeshi. Being a sensitive border, much of the borderline is guarded, we saw both Indian and Bangladeshi check-posts. But this stretch was more relaxed, unguarded and Bangladeshis could unofficially cross the river to get firewood in the stretch of forest above the village. The Bangladeshi side is barren.

On July 31st India and Bangladesh will exchange 162 parcels of land, each of which happens to lie on the wrong side of the Indo-Bangladesh border. India and Bangladesh share a 4,100km border, hastily drawn around one of the most densely populated places on earth in 1947. Legend has it that the parcels of land were formed as a result of a series of chess games played between two maharajas centuries ago (the chunks of land were used as wagers). They were later attributed to a drunken British officer who supposedly spilt drops of ink on the map when drawing the India-Pakistan border in 1947.