Boats, Buddhists, and the Beach

The first day in Cox Bazar we decided to take it a bit easy. We hung out and just enjoyed the view for a long time, resting from our long drive the day before. We decided we wanted to get out on the water so we took a boat out into the mouth of the Rezu river to a little beach on the Bay of Bengal. It was ridiculously beautiful - almost indescribable.

We had a nice time playing around with the crabs and running around on the beach and then we headed back up the river for more scenic beauty. It was a relaxing, fun day – but there isn’t a lot to say about it…just take a look at the pics:

The next day we drove into the main attraction of Cox Bazaar. This is the official town and tourist attraction- honestly a little too touristy. Jon, Atticus, and Barry walked around the market and looked at some stuff, while Sam drove back to the hotel for her camera battery – grumble grumble. Anyhow, it was good bonding time for Sam and the driver (who had previously been a little crabby) and the boys got some shopping done, which we all know Barry loves.

The market was a series of circular buildings that stretched down from a main road to the beach. Apparently Barry had a plan of attack for tackling the market that he had not informed Jon and Atticus about as the three dizzyingly weaved around the shops with Jon and Atticus in a state of confusion with children trying to sell them seashell necklaces in tow. Barry had needed a hat since he arrived in Bangladesh and Jon and Sam felt that he needed a Burmese style lungi as well. Barry had seen an orange hat that he liked at a “fixed price” shop (almost nothing in Bangladesh is actually fixed price), but he decided to hard bargain by leaving after making a price offer that the guy didn’t accept. After having perused the entire market Barry decided to return to the hat shop and get the orange hat, which he has broken in quite nicely. The guy ended up giving it to him for 20 taka less than the “fixed price,” though still ten taka more than what Barry had tried for (that’s bargaining I guess). In the meantime the three had also purchased a lungi and a slinky for Atticus.

After the market the three headed down to the beach since they knew Sam would still be a while, and it is (after all) a beach town. The beach was pretty nice and of course we had to have our picture taken with several people. It was certainly a new experience for Barry (although we’ve gotten used to it) to have crowds of people around asking to have their photos taken with us. Here we all are at one of the most beautiful places on earth, and everyone wants a picture of us! Oh well, we try to oblige and smile and take it as a compliment. It can be a tiresome (as we were acutely reminded of in Lowachara rainforest a few days later –and which will be further described in another post) but we do think the best thing to do is to go along with it. Plus, it means we get a lot of photos of other people as well.

So, apparently beach vacations are sort of a new thing here and people aren’t quite sure what to do with themselves. Some of the young men were playing in the water, but most were just sort of standing there fully clothed (this is still a modest Muslim country) looking at the water (or the white people) while others sat under rented beach umbrellas. Jon and Atticus waded in Bay of Bengal and then the trio returned to the market area to meet Sam, who had returned with the camera battery.

Below are some photos of the market and beach courtesy of Barry Christiansen.

After the beach, we all reunited and headed out to the pier to take a boat over to Mohashkali island. This is a little island off the coast that is known for its old Buddhist stupas and a temple to Shiva and Durga. We took a severely crowded speedboat over, then got some rickshaws to travel around the island. Clearly the rickshaws have a little tour system, and they suggested a route, which we took. It was a great little ride around, in fact. We stopped at many different Buddhist temples/stupas and met the interesting Mr. Ling Ling, a monk who had only become a monk 11 days prior. It was fun to get a tour around this area because the look of everything is totally different than a lot of Bangladesh. It is much more Southeast Asia feeling, and the Buddhist influence is more visible. The architecture and feel was certainly more what you’d expect from Burma or Thailand than Bangladesh, so it was a nice change of style.

We also went by the salt flats, and looked around, which was an interesting sight. Finally, the ultimate goal was the temple and stupa high on a hill which after a little jaunt up some stairs, overlooked the island and coast. The view was nice and the man at the temple was especially welcoming and friendly explaining to us which gods the shrines were to and the history of the temple. He even took a rare flower from a shrine and gave it to us.

Here are some photos around the island:

Afterwards, we headed back to the pier, which was no longer there! Instead was a field of mud with little wooden boats lined up to create walkways out to the water, which was probably 100 meters or so farther away than before. Now we know the answer to our wonderings earlier in the day when we asked “Why do they keep all these raggedy little boats around that obviously can’t float?” We took another overcrowded speedboat back, had some tasty lunch at a little Bangladeshi food dive suggested by our driver, and headed back to the house for the night, sunburned and tired.