Transportation in Bangladesh consists chiefly of train, car & driver for hire, auto-rickshaw, and pedal-rickshaw. 

Train: Bangladesh’s train stations have virtually no signage in English, nor English-speaking information counters (exception: Rajshahi train station). Read the WoWasis post on how to deal with this. When you do get a first class ticket, the trains are relatively fast, and very inexpensive, by western standards. 

The sturdy diesel locomotives in Bangladesh pull everything, everywhere

Hired car & driver: This is an exceptional way to visit outlying historical areas. Expect to pay between $80 and $100 USD per day. You’ll also pay for your driver’s food and hotels room, if necessary. If you don’t read Bengali, don’t even think of driving, as there are essentially no road or street signs in English in the entire country. You can also hire a car & driver to take you around Dhaka, but traffic jams make this method an even toss up with auto-rickshaws and pedal-rickshaws, which are cheaper, and go just as slowly. 

This auto-rickshaw started beaming when he finally got a fare from WoWasis

Auto-rickshaw: also called a CNG (for compressed natural gas, which fuels it), these ubiquitous green three-wheeled conveyances have an enclosed cage, which you ride in, giving the whole thing an aura of a portable zoo in which you’re the animal. Like tuk-tuks everywhere, price is always open to negotiation. 

Pedal rickshaw: they’re everywhere, cheap (under $1 USD per mile), and in Dhaka, just about as fast as cars. Their drivers are extremely poor. We found the best technique for determining payment was to ask a Bangladeshi how much to pay. We’d bump it up by 30-50% at the end of the ride. 

You’ll notice we didn’t mention taxis. They’re never around, mainly congregating at train stations and airports. The auto-rickshaws and pedal-rickshaws, on the other hand, are everywhere.