Bangladesh: Cox's Bazar (Part 1)

A source of pride for the Bangladeshis is Cox's Bazar, a fishing town in southeast Bangldesh close to the Myanmar (Burma) border. Many consider it to be the longest sandy sea beach in world. But Guinness Book of World Records lists the one in Brazil as the longest at 254 km. Cox's Bazar's however is unbroken at 125 km long.

FROM HOTEL BALCONY

Excitedly I woke up early to sneak a peek at the beach from my room's balcony. It was drizzling with grey skies. Got a little worried that the beach day might be a dud.


Immediately across the hotel is a little plaza (garden). It's still underdeveloped, but if you see on the right side, there is construction going on, another hotel I feel, next to the beach. The colorful roofs on the left are shops and restaurants.


Rainwater accumulated on the streets and this resourceful CNG (for compressed natural gas, which this baby taxi uses) driver uses it to wash the mud off his vehicle.


I spotted a fish all the way from my balcony.


Pleasant surprise to find wild horses (yap there was more than one) were seen walking down to the beach. I don't know what they do at the beach in the morning (and at twilight - photos coming soon).


Meeting at the beach

ON THE BEACH


Wide sandy beach, with only rental chairs, not developed yet. Although we are sure that the next time (if and when) I come here, I would not recognize this place. We have seen many constructions going on while there.

THE HAWKERS

Aside from the water itself it's the hawkers that kept me entertained and gave my camera a work out.


Bananas anyone?


Selling jalmuri - a local snack made of puffed rice and chili and other components.


Selling accessories made of shell.


What about coconuts, fancy some today?


A personable kid selling shell jewelry.


By the look on her face, the boy could be making a sale.

And now for a new kind of selling technique that the Bangledeshi kids have perfected and in fact used on me (and everyone else later). It's like a scam, but a funny kind of scam. May be a scam is not the right word, a trick perhaps, but for the sake of this post let's call it SELLING TECHNIQUE, but here goes......

There are hawkers selling tea and coffee. They walk around lugging thermos. Following them are kids 10 years and above carrying mugs.

Their modus operandi goes like this. They would observe who belongs to what group. They would wait until the group disperses to do his/her own thing. Then they "attack".


Two of them approached a lady offering a mug of tea or coffee.


When the potential customer rebuffed them, they would point to the member of the group/family saying it was from him/her.

Naturally the person would take the offered beverage. I did. The kids would wait until all the beverage is consumed before they ask for payment. I was taken, big time!!!!!

It was more amusing than anything. It was like being punked!


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