Night time view of beach.
Five star hotel dinner.
The boys mixing the 7-Up.
Andrea really enjoying her fresh fruit juices.
Enjoying the view from a beach-side restaurant terrace.
Rosanna and Andrea, what a cute couple.
View of beach close to sunset.
Beautiful!!!Funny how my posts are only about my weekend escapes from Dhaka and not about what I actually do everyday in Dhaka. That would be boring for the most part, who wants to know about what I am actually working on?
Anyways, who would have thought there was actually a very nice beach in Bangladesh? We went to Cox's Bazaar this weekend to celebrate/ close the chapter on Rosanna's last weekend in Bangladesh. It was a long journey there, but well worth the peace and quiet away from Dhaka.
We met up with this young Bangladeshi named Babu, whom Andrea and Rosanna met and befriended in Dhaka awhile back, and his two friends at the beach. Let's just say that boys will be boys anywhere I suppose. They were very kindhearted and friendly, but definitely young college boys. They were very pleased with the contraband Smirnoff that they hid in a 7-UP bottle and brought with them everywhere. And one of the three smoked a joint before breakfast just because. I chuckled, trying to think back to my college days and the adventures I had at Berkeley. But my memory gets spotty more than five years in the past...
One of the biggest downsides to the beach was that women have to wear the same thing they wear normally on the streets into the water. Think completely opposite of the nude beaches in Europe. Those three piece suits, yes, those are worn into the water while guys can run around without their shirts on. Sexy I know.
So, because of the unfortunately maddening cultural restrictions, we decided to not even try to go into the water until it was dark and no one could see us in our scantily clad two-pieces wave surfing. After dinner, armeed with our "7-UP", towels, and bathing suits hidden under our traditional clothing, we headed to a secluded area of the beach to have some fun. It felt liberating to strip off our knee-covering long pants and shoulder covering tops and run into the water, giggling like little kids who just stole a cookie from the cookie jar without getting slapped on the hand by mom.
None of the boys knew how to swim, and were at first scared to join us playing in the water. But eventually, they came in and battled the sometimes scary waves with us. We wanted to document our little scandalous adventure, so we took some "flash" photos, but not too many, in case any locals were to see that we were in our inappropriate beach wear. I am not posting any of those photos out of respect for all parties involved, and because I realized I have four weeks to get in shape for Fiji. The high carb diet and lack of exercise opportunities and facilities for the last six weeks have not been good for my bathing suit body.
The beach was pretty beautiful, its nearly up to par with some of the world class beaches I have been to over the last few years. Much cleaner than I expected, but not as developed as I expected. Sadly, I can see Cox's Bazaar turning into a Phuket or Boracay in a few years time. Right now, its in a state of transition from the local beach to an internationally known beach.
We decided to splurg on dinner our last night at the beach after the boys had left, and ate at a five star hotel along the main strip of the town. It almost felt like we weren't in Bangladesh anymore, the restaurant was so modern and posh looking. While there, we met some other foreigners (YES, WE FOUND SOME BESIDES OURSELVES!!) who were doing aid work in the area. We found ourselves turning into typical Bangladeshis, staring and pointing and wanting to know what county they are from. Quite funny actually, that we were doing to the other foreigners what the Bangladeshis do to us. But, we met this interesting guy Peter, who works for the UN relocating refugees to other countries, and he invited us to a foreigner party with all the other aid workers. The one night we get invited out we have to get on a painful 10 hour overnight bus back to Dhaka. Just our luck of course!
Unfortunately, I am back in Dhaka again. But, our little adventure in Cox's Bazaar was well worth the exhausting trip there and back. Again, my weekend demontrated to me that Bangladesh has a lot to offer outside of Dhaka.
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