cox's bazaar, sun, sea, sand and no sex! 1st proper day at cox's bazaar

hey world!!!

This week, I have been far far away at the jewel of the Bangladesh crown. Cox’s bazaar is a seaside resort, not like Blackpool, but somewhere which still retains lots of natural beauty but also is being infiltrated by the major tourist companies.

Last Monday, I woke up before sunrise to get ready for the 8hr bus journey. I have confirmed to myself once again that I am not an early morning person. I hate early mornings but it is even more depressing when you wake up when the sun has not even risen! I had to be at Razorbag bus station for 7 o’clock. Me being the twat I am didn’t anticipate that I wouldn’t have any morning traffic to deal with that early, this meant I reached there for 6.30 and I was seriously moody cause I could have slept for another 30mins..

The reason why I went to Cox’s bazaar last week is because FPAB have their annual general meeting there. I was really fortunate that my elective coincided with this, because I was planning on visiting the beach but I didn’t know when I would fit it in. The phrase, 2 birds with 1 stone was awesome, I went to see Bangladesh’s seaside and also be on my elective at the same time.

The AGM itself was not very interesting. It was an evaluation how the NGO was doing nationally with many members from all over the nation being present there. There were speeches, presentations, discussions, workshops etc. I am still having trouble understanding fast spoken bangla, and it was no surprise I was falling asleep or playing on my Nintendo or day dreaming about hitting the beach.

The AGM started on Tuesday and we travelled all day on the Monday before. For three solid days, the AGM happened 9-6. I didn’t attend the early morning sessions, my bed was far too comfortable for that and I didn’t stay all day because I wanted to do was chill by sea which was only a stone throw away from the hotel.

As for the beach itself, it is a place where one can just chill out and forget all about the realities of life. The place is relatively clean and kids are employed a phone company to pick up litter. The sad fact is, these kids should be in school, and the other sad fact is that littering is a massive problem in this country. The government here is too busy concerned about its military capabilities than doing the simple things such as placing a bin in places populated by man. I have never seen a bin Dhaka and I haven’t seen one either in Cox’s bazaar. Simple things seem to be too complicated for a country which tries to copy the west.

On my first day on the beach, I chilled on a deck chair for an hour, got hassled by kids to give them some money and or buy shells. I did both, but it doesn’t matter where you go in this country, poverty follows and its depressing, because here I am, a tourist first, British second, and Bangladeshi third and it really upsets me when I see these children and family because if it wasn’t for the simple migration my dad did, I could have easily had the same childhood. Alone, I can not change this; change must come centrally and nationally.

The highlight after relaxing on my deckchair, was that I hired a beach buggy for an hour, this was bloody awesome, it was simple to drive and there were some mini dunes I could drive over. The best thing was that you it only had one gear, like a video game u just pressed the accelerator button and steered!! Afterwards, the sun started to set, this thing about sunsets here are that, you don’t get to see the sun ingested by the ocean. The horizon is always cloudy on the Bay of Bengal; therefore, I only managed to take pictures of a tangerine sun. This upset me, because I tried for three days and disappointment each day. After sunset, I went back to my hotel watched some TV and met with two of my colleagues, Hasan, and Zaki. They are relatively young compared to the whole FPAB members, at 23, and 33. with them, we would just chill on the beach again at night and drink tea and I would be questioned about the usual stuff, England, girls, and alcohol. Around half 10, I would retire for the day and sleep again after watching some MTV.