Walk Of Fame by Jeff Vize

I'M NOT A MOVIE STAR, but I've played one abroad. Not that I know anything about acting but I just know what it's like to be famous; I was a celebrity for five days in Bangladesh.

If you've been to any developing nation, you've no doubt had the same experience - particularly if your skin colour is a few shades darker or lighter than the locally prevailing hue. But ethnicity isn't all that matters and you don't even have to appear on TV; you just need to step out of your hotel.

The fame conferred upon foreign travellers in Bangladesh is unique for its intensity. Visitors are rare, and a pale white tourist plodding around in Bermuda shorts is a sight to behold for average Bangladeshis. They stare.

Of course, people stare everywhere, whether it's polite Japan or rowdy India. Yet there is something slightly different about the Bangladeshi's stare. It's not the convertly stolen glance of a Tokyo train commuter, or even the leering gaze that a scantily lad Western woman might attract in India. It's a look of absolute shock: a slack-jawed, eye-popping, dry-tongued stare that starlets you as much as you've startled them. They're thinking, There is a foreigner on my street!

And it doesn't stop with the stare. A visiting foreigner here has the power to cause traffic jams as rickshaw and truck drivers slam on their brakes to have a look. Shopkeepers follow you down the street. Children abandon soccer games and huddle around, trying to touch you. I've entered a small shop and turned to find the exit blocked by 20 curious Bangladeshis. And another time, I was ambushed by a group of kids who led me by the hand to - voila! - another foreigner whom their friends had found some two blocks away. He was the only other foreign visitor I saw in five days.

I found all this attention charming at first, but I soon began to think twice about even leaving my hotel. so i developed some coping strategies. First of all, I figured out- never stop in the street to look at your guidebook. It'd be like dripping honey in an ant farm.

The second rule was to walk fast. People would still stare, but I'd pass them like a phantom - leaving them to discuss if I actually existed or not.

The third rule was to develop friendly yet slightly dismissive ways of acknowledging my fame. I had fun with this one. The easiest was the Princess Diana wave - a half turn of the hand at face level with a slightly demure smile. On more energetic days, I resorted to the Richard Nixon victory pose - arms above my head, fingers held up to signify the letter V - the kids loved that one. If I get surrounded, I turned local politician - hand extended for multiple handshakes and pats on the head. Finally, there was the simple head-nod. This wasn't as nice, but it worked when I was in a hurry, which was often.

My techniques worked well for the first few days; then they backfired spectacularly. The problem began with my visit to the Pink Palace, one of Dhaka's biggest tourist attractions. The palace gates were locked and my only exit was via a busy street packed with Bangladeshis surely waithing to pounce.

People were already staring and a few of them were taking cautions steps towards me. I slung my backpack over one sholder and did a Princess Di. A hundred heads turned in my direction.

"Hello!" a group of labourers called out in unison. "Hello!" I returned.
"Hello!" they repeated.
"I'm from America," I said.

That didn't satisfy them. They continued as I passed:"Hello!" "America!" "Hello!" "America!" Even for Bangladeshis standards, this was a bit bizarre. I heard footsteps following me. A dozen or so children were converging ahead as well. I picked up my pace and prepared to do a Richard Nixon.

The children reached me before the labourers did, and there were so many of them that I stopped. They too stopped a metre away from me while shouting and gesticulatingso vigorously that something must have been wrong. Their cries were a cocophony of "hello"s and "hey mister"s and instructions I couldn't understand. I had to keep moving. I continued forwards.

"No!" one of them finally shouted. The others were gesturing and pointing like a group of madmen.

"Hello!" I repeated.
The children erupted into laughter; this was evidently the funniest thing they had ever heard. Then one of the labourers arrived. "Mister!" he said, pointing at my feet. "No!"

I looked down.
I had spent the last hundred metres walking in wet cement. A trail of my footprints was visible all the way back to the gate.
Maybe I'm not cut out for fame.