Children of The Sea 11: Nightwish

When I first went to Coxsbazar, I was a small child. It was back in 1985. Surprisingly enough, I have a lot of memories of that tour, inscribed in my mind. There was this restaurant called “Niribili”, where my mom and dad went to have lunch on two occasions. I particularly remember that place because when my mom was feeding me rice and fish, a large, white cat came and started cat-walking under the table. I always had a soft corner for the feline species, and Tom was my favorite cartoon character. One of my childhood fantasies was Tom and Jerry would visit me someday, and me and Tom will have a great time chasing Jerry together. I even had a Tom and Jerry bed sheet!

I tried finding Niribili restaurant when I came here with my GP colleagues, but didn’t get enough time to do so. This time, I really wanted to visit that place, just to find any resemblance with the vague memory clips that are stored in my mind and the present. My friends were also interested in visiting that place, as the name is still known for good food at a cheaper price.

After the shopping spree, all of us were lacking in funds. Moreover, we spent a lot of extra money, mostly on food and drinks. The meal at Angel Drop proved to be too expensive. So we were looking forward to a cheaper meal this time. This might sound funny, and here, sitting in a comfortable chair and with a filled up stomach, it sounds humorous to me as well at a group of young guys spent so much time selecting a suitable place for dinner, when they were on a tour. But hey, food is important!

We got some rickshaws and they took us to some Niribili hotel. This place had nothing to do with my 1985 memory, and I suddenly realized that it was 20 years ago, and I am being a fool by trying to find some of the things that I saw in 1985, standing here in year 2005. That place didn’t look nice, and food was not available either.

We ended up having dinner in some other restaurant. That too was the dining hall of a hotel, and the food was cheap and delicious. We finally had Rupchada fish, which is one delicacy that no one should miss while staying in Coxsbazar.

All of us were tired, and yet we wanted to go to Angel Drop on our way back. None of us were sure when again we’ll visit Coxsbazar, and let alone visiting together. Angel Drop was undoubtedly the highlight of our tour, and Alas, we had no photographs of that place. Me and Tushar were in particular not interested to go. At that time I didn’t express my feelings, but now I confess, it was really hard going there. I was totally exhausted from the day’s toil. We did so many things on that day….we went shopping, we pushed a car out of mud, we visited two sea beaches, we stood still on a Jeep for several hours, we had a heavy dinner, we didn’t have anything for lunch, etc.

However, I must say, if we didn’t go there that night, our tour wouldn’t have been complete. Angel Drop and Kolatoli beach deserved a second visit, and we loved every moment of that second sitting. All of us were present, and we had two rounds of coffee. The sea was mysterious as always, and I had that feeling again….the restaurant is moving on the water like a ship on the sea.

At around 11 PM, the guys in the restaurant told us very politely that they’d be closing soon. So we had to get going. We bade a final farewell to the marvelous view, and started heading towards the rickshaws that we kept waiting. I knew I’ll get back there some time.

“I Will Be Back”, was the sentence that echoed in my mind.

When we entered the cottage, we had mixed emotions. One part of the mind was sad because this was going to be the last night in Coxsbazar. The other part was happy because I was going to get some rest after the day’s hectic schedule. We planned that now we’ll take some rest, and at around 3 AM, we’ll head off to the beach. We wanted to see the sunrise next morning.

I don’t quite remember what the exact time when I heard people talking about getting ready and going to the beach. But I heard voices, got up, and when everyone else (except Sujit) started going out, I joined them. Suji, as usual, was not very interested in going to the beach, and decided to continue the nap instead.

Anyways, me, Tushar, Pintu, Ashique and Murshid reached the beach and found the place very nice and serene. There were some unwanted spotlights lit here and there, which made the place gleaming. It was a Full Moon day, and it would have been a lot better if all other lights were turned off. But there was nothing we could do about this.

There was some beach chairs laid here and there. We rented three of them, and joined them together for our comfort. A young lad made an agreement with us, which also gave him the exclusive rights for selling Coffee and Tea to us!

After reserving the chairs, we decided to take a walk. The sea was calm and the place was quiet. Soon afterwards, we all settled down in to the chairs, and we started a philosophical discussion on the family structure, and essential elements of maintaining a happy family(!). According to Ashique, it is very hard to be happy in conjugal life. This is quite true....jhogras and kechal is almost always there, and apparently, these things are more prevalent in couples who went out together before getting married.

After a while, Tushar got bored and started listening to his diskman. Pintu went sleeping. After a while, I also started "jhimanifying", and hence I don't really recall much else about that night. I heard people talking, but I was trying to sleep under the open sky, and in presence of the full moon. I always wanted to spend a moonlit night outdoors, but never got the right opportunity of doing so.

The Sea at 8 AM

Eventually I fell asleep, and had quite a good sleep. I woke up again just before the sunrise. I was waiting for this moment...when the glorious sun would rise, and I can see the scenery. But unfortunately, although I was awake, I was not fully awake. I was in a "stuck in the middle" state....a constant fight between slumber and awareness was going on. At around 6 AM, we all got up.

Pintu and Murshid decided to go back to the cottage, while we three stayed back. We stayed there till 9 AM, and enjoyed proximity of the sea for the last time, at least for this journey.

This time around, the sea was really violent, with waves after waves hitting us like lightning bolts. I lost control of myself multiple times, and I was fortunate to be able to keep my spectacles with me. I always think that I will leave my glasses behind before entering the sea, but I barely see without glasses, and hence that never happens. Maybe I should get contact lenses. Being able to enjoy the sea properly could be a good enough reason to get a laser operation or a pair of contact lenses.

My legs were feeling heavier by the minutes, and it was a long walk back to the cottage. The distance was not that big, but our heavy minds made it tough. When we were walking, we were not that sad, as the memory of the sea was still fresh in our minds. But as soon as I stepped inside the cottage room, I knew that it'll take a long time before I could actually go to the seas again.

Sigh.....writing this whole story was a memorable incident for me. I smiled while writing, I felt emptyness within myself while writing, and now I am feeling sad for saying that this story is...

To be concluded

in the next episode.

Children of The Sea 10: Owl's Island

Ever since I started writing about this journey, I couldn't wait to write about Owl's Island. Well, don't let the name scare you, because we didn't really see any owls. On our way to Inani beach, we came across a place which was called "Pechar Deap", as in Owl's Island. This time around, we left the beach road and took a rather mountainous road. This road reminded me of Shillong.

I came to know about the name of the area from an old sign board at the left side of the road. I’ve seen a “live” owl only once in my life. That was in Netrokona, the first time when I went there. After a while, we came across a very rough, muddy road. We came to know that it had been raining in torrents for the last couple of days, which made the road look like chocolate spread.

Suddenly, our car got stuck in the mud, and after a number of heavy revolutions, the engine stopped. We all got down, and found ourselves stranded in a muddy mess. I’ve never seen mud thicker than this. Some workers were standing nearby, apparently repairing the broken, mud infested road. When the driver and his companion started pushing the car, I thought they’d join in and help us out. But they didn’t bother, and kept on doing whatever they were doing. Later on, I came to know that they passed an offer of pushing the car out of the mud in exchange of Taka 500.

Soon all of us were down in the mud pile, and pushing the car hard. Murshid and Ashique took the lead, and soon I and Tushar followed. Later on Pintu and Sujit joined as well. No matter how hard we pushed, the car wouldn’t move. Then we resorted to other techniques like putting bricks at both ends of the tire and turning on the engine whilst people are pushing. On such an incident, the tire rolled, and we got mud-sprayed. I still had some hopes of keeping my dress clean, but after that incident, I simply had nothing to lose. I got down with rejuvenated vigor, and soon we were able to move the rear end a few inches forward.

Sujit was the first one to desert the car pushing party. After a while, he left and went to a dry bridge ahead of the place where our car was stuck. We urged him to take snaps of our pushing effort, and also that of our mud stained feet, but for some reason he didn’t take any. After all, it was his camera, and there is a limit of requesting. Someone put a footmark on Murshid’s T-Shirt, and we had a good laugh over that one.

Interestingly, none of us were worried about the danger we were in. It was like something will come up, and we’ll get out of the car. I even thought about deserting the car and moving forward. At one point, almost all of us were standing on the bridge (not really a bridge, just a euphemism there) and chatting. That was the time when we all found out that our feet were looking like a statute’s feet.

I asked a local guy…”Bhai ei jaygar naam ki?”

He replied “Hesaar Dif”

After some time, other cars started coming in, and there was a mini traffic jam at both ends of the road. So for the sake of their own interest, people from the other cars got down and joined our driver. Seeing a lot of people, most of us took a back seat from the action, and eagerly waited for the mud stuck whale, I mean the jeep to get out of the entrapment.

After some high level assistance from some of the more experienced drivers, our car finally got out of the mud pile, we started our journey again. We planned on cleaning ourselves in the Inani beach.

We were already late, and hunger was striking us as well. However, the thought of getting near to a clear sea was more enticing than sitting down and eating. From my past experience, I knew that Inani was a rock filled beach, and one needs to be very careful while going from one point to another. There are heavy, sharp edged rocks lying everywhere down the sea bed, which you can’t see from above, but your legs will feel them once you bump into one. In that beach, there is a place where there are fewer rocks, and the rest part of the beach is rocky. This time around, however, we couldn’t find the place with fewer rocks, and the 30 something minutes we spent there wasn’t spectacular at all. Yeah, we were asked to get back on the car after 30-40 minutes in the water. The reason being that if we didn’t start our journey back, we couldn’t reach our hotel before evening. We too didn’t want these novice drivers to drive us back during night time. We did realize that they were novice, but it was too late to do something about it then.

This time we opted for a different route. We would go around the road to Tecnaf instead of the beach road that we used in the beginning. This would take more time, and hence we started off fast. This journey was fun filled, as we were passing through locales. A lot of local inhabitants were giving us strange looks and passing comments in that same unintelligible dialect. We were puzzled, and the helper decided to eliminate our confusion.

“They think he is a lady, and that’s why they are passing comments!”

We couldn’t help bursting out in laughter. Tushar looked totally embarrassed and humiliated, but there was nothing he can do. He didn’t want to cut his precious locks, nor was he ready for this assault. I was irritated as well, because I was standing next to him. His embarrassment soon turned in to irritation, anger, and eventually indifference.

By the time we reached Coxsbazar, he was totally indifferent towards any joke regarding his long hair. At one point he really got pissed off at us for laughing at him.

When we reached the town, it was getting pretty late. We had three things to do...collect tickets for our return journey, go shopping and have dinner. Angel Drop was considered for dinner again, but we had to reject the plan due to heavy expenses involved. We decided to confirm the tickets first.

We changed clothes at the cottage, freshened up, took some rest, and went out for the ticket counter of Green Line. Ashique was continuously saying that the buses of Green Line aren't that good, and the high ticket price is not worthy. My last journey to Coxsbazar was via Green Line bus, so I had a slight preference for them. But as Ashique was heavily insisting on going for a alternative solution, we went to Shohag for checking their buses out. Shohag buses are great, but the heavy price tag of Tk 400 instantly turned off some light bulbs!

So we went for a cheaper solution in the form of some bus service provider called Hanif. According to Ashique, they have these really comfortable buses, that can be stretched and we can relax within them easily. We also found out that Hanif service was really flexible. Infact, they were so flexible that we could book seats for any bus starting from 9 AM, and there was a bus leaving at every hour, e.g. 10 AM, 11 AM, and so on.

To get some rest in the morning, we opted for the bus leaving at 11 AM. Although there were few signs of resistance, but 11 AM was mutually accepted by all of us.

From there, we hurried towards the Burmese Market. I was on the lookout for something that I really wanted to buy, but couldn't gather courage to do so in my previous visit. On our way to the market, Sujit started complaining that he desperately needs to eat something, and some others also followed suit. Well, I was feeling hungry, too, as we inadvertently skipped lunch that day!

Two things were in my buying agenda, Pickles and a knife. Last time I bought some boroi era char, which tasted great. And also I pried my eyes upon some beautifully crafted knives, but dared not to buy one. Well, that was almost a year ago. Now I am more confident, I was having a great time due to the fact that I'll be soon leaving GP, and things were different as a whole.

None of the knives that were displayed in the first shop caught my attention. I half liked one knife, but the shop keeper was acting weird. He refused to announce a price unless I assured that I'd be buying it!

So I walked on to the next shop, where there were more weapons on display.

I particularly liked this knife, and honestly speaking, I didn't bargain much. The moment I saw it, I knew I'll be going home with this cute little thingy.

Murshid asked me what I will be doing with this knife. I said "Eita diye ghore boshe batash katbo, sideways and from up to down". Haha, actually that's true. I don't spend too much time with this. Instead, I save it for the very special(!) occasions.

Anyways, after buying the knife, I impatiently waited for the others to finish buying their stuff. As I was done with my shopping, I was naturally not that much tolerant. I stopped Sujit from buying a Cross. I wonder what got him, but he seemed mesmerized with the beauty of the cross. I am sure his dad would put a permanent embargo on his outside of Dhaka journey, as soon as he'd discover his son wearing a cross. I also wonder why Ashique was supporting Sujit!

In my last visit, I found out this really nice Achar vendor, who sold some really delicious pickels to me and my companions. It was the only "exclusive" achar shop in that area. Fortunately, I managed to find him out this time around, as well. All of us bought a lot of achar.

Suddenly, we realized that it was pretty late. It was 10:15 PM, and we haven't had lunch, and we had no specific plans for dinner.

So did we spend the last night of our journey in hunger? Did we sleep through the night, or did some wild stuff? To know more, you gotta wait a bit :D

To be continued

p.s. I am a violent manush...stay away from me! I fantasize killing people with the knife all the time :D

Children of The Sea 9: The Heavenly Fall

So we finished the drink of tea, and started climbing upwards. After what seemed like forever to me, we finally reached the peak of the place. It was a tiring journey upwards, and at one point of time, I just stopped for taking a rest, while the others were still getting up. This is a quote from Pintu, which he told me a long time after getting through with Himchori:
"It seemed to me that you're going to pass out anytime...there....but I'm glad to see that you're doing great now!".


Inside a hut, from left to right: Murshid, Ishtiaque, Pintu, Ashique, Tushar

Sea View from the Peak

We took a lot of pictures over there. The sea view from the peak was beyond description. This place gave us one of the best sea views of the tour. May be only second to Angel Drop's.

On Our Way to Himchori

There were a number of small hut like places over the peak, with benches laid at both ends. Also there were another series of stairs, taking us up and down, horizontaly. This stair climbing experience was horrible, and I was eagerly waiting for it to end. However, every hut gave me a better reason to continue the journey.

After spending there for quite some time, we finally decided to get down. The downward journey wasn't half bad, with the few exceptional cases of upward stairs...erghhh. I think I'll just name the stairs "The Stairs of Pain". Once again, after what seemed like "almost" forever, we got down, and headed towards the inner portion of the place. We knew that there's a spring there.

When I was a kid, my parents brought me here. I still have some pictures to remember(!) that occasion. But I didn't get to see this place in my last trip. So I was really looking forward to seeing the springs, again. I've seen a big Spring in Shillong, but it disappointed me. It was winter, and the Spring didn't have a decent flow of water pouring out. But this place was awesome. It was rainy season, and the Spring was full of water and life, or should I say life and life, as life is water and water is life?

All of us went inside, while Sujit took the pics. Maybe he knew that if he hadn't taken a lot of pictures there, some of my blog readers would give him a gono pituni. Hehe...it was actually good that he fears water.

Finally, Sujit shows up in a pic
The spring water tasted so good! And I am hundred percent sure that it had healing capabilities. I started feeling better as soon as I got out of the spring. My legs were no more paining, and I was walking faster than some of the others.

In year 2004, before we went to Coxsbazar for the GP Sales and Marketing Assembly, all of us were given a Hawaii shirt. I was too embarrassed to wear that in front of my colleagues, but I didn't think twice to take it with me when it came to going on a trip with my buddies. And hence you can see me in that bright colored shirt in the pics.

It was hard leaving that place. It was damn hard. I wanted to drink more Spring water, and I regretted that I didn't bring a bottle or two to fill in.

If you want to drink some "pani pora" as a medicine or sacred water, you should drink the Spring water.

We boarded the Jeep again, and the vehicle started towards the final destination of our trip, Inani beach.

To be continued

As the story is nearing the end, I cannot but feel sad :| I so miss the three days we spent there

Children of The Sea 8: A Brand New Day

Something really wonderful happened while we were sitting and watching the wonderful evening view of the sea. At some point, I got a genuine feeling that the restaurant was actually moving. This happened to me before. When I was a kid, I was sitting in the car with my mom, in front of a place from where people would collect drinking water in huge container. People who lived in Saudi Arabia would know what these places are. Every month, dad would take us once to this place, and we’d return with a big container (which was called a “gallon” for reasons not known to me) full of water. There’d always be an ice cream car there, and I almost always managed to convince mom about having a cone.

So I was sitting in the car, and there were two other cars parked in both sides of ours. Suddenly, both of those cars started moving, simultaneously. Instantly, I experienced one of the scariest feelings of my life—I thought our car was moving. The feeling was so realistic! My mother also had the same feeling. It totally freaked us out as the car was turned off and father was not inside the car. But it didn’t take more than 30 seconds to realize the truth.

The same thing happened in Angel drop. I thought that the restaurant was actually moving forward, along with the gigantic waves that were splashing. But this time I was not afraid. It gave me a marvelous, fictitious feeling of riding a ship. We considered plans for going to St. Martin Island, but dared not to due to bad weather and off-season warnings from multiple people. But at that moment I really regretted the decision. If we went to St. Martin, we could, actually ride a sea trawler, which is very much like a ship. Maybe next time….Should be next time….Needs to be done next time. Yeah, we already have plans for our next trip.

We were really tired, and gradually all of us fall asleep. The day after would be a big day, as we were supposed to do most of our traveling within Coxsbazar that day.

Not too surprisingly, everyone woke up late in the morning. It was a bright and sunny Friday. My friends were really nice to me, and I wasn’t awakened before everyone else got ready. Maybe I was sleeping like a baby. After getting fresh, all of us dared to go to the restaurant belonging to the cottage owners. We had our breakfast there, which was moderate in taste but heavy on our pockets!

After that, we went to a Jeep depot for hiring a hood-less jeep. The journey from Coxsbazar to Inani beach is one journey which no one would ever want to miss. There were both hooded and hood free Jeeps in the depot. The hood free ones were a bit cheaper. However, from my past experience, I was not going for the hooded cars. After heavy bargaining, we finally rented a jeep that would take us all the way down to Inani beach, and en route we would also get to see Himchori.

Both Inani beach and Himchori are famous tourist spots of Coxsbazar. During the tourist season, lots of people go there. The tourist season is usually the dry season, mostly during winter and spring. Lots of people flock over to Coxsbazar in October, November and December.

When we got on board the hoodless Jeep, it was drizzling. We went to the market adjacent to kolatoli beach and bought some food and drinks for the journey. At around 10:30, we set sail towards Inani beach. It was already late, and we were getting impatient. There was one driver and a helper. Both of them appeared to be jolly good fellows. The car quickly paced up, and we were speeding through a village like place. Soon all of us were standing. There was a thing similar to an iron cage, over our heads. It was not a totally hood free Jeep. But there was no clothe above our heads.

The wind was hitting me hard on the face, and I had to duck multiple times to avoid getting hit by tree branches. There were lots of local people around, and they kept on passing comments at us in their very unintelligible dialect.
Driving by the sea shore

The most enjoying portion of this journey started when our jeep discarded the usual roads and we started driving besides the sea shore. That is one hell of an experience. The wind here was even stronger, and at a point of time I removed my spectacles and put them inside the pocket, for fear of losing them.

Suddenly, the car stopped. One tire came out, and the car was immediately stopped. I and the others literally saw the tire falling out of the car. We came out and watched around. It was moderately raining that time. There were a few straw huts there, inhabited by lots of kids and some grown ups. It was a beach very near to Kolatoli, but no tourists were there.

The Straw Hut!

We took a lot of pictures here. Now that I'm here in Dhaka, going through the pics, I can say that we took a little too much pictures over there. However, we were almost one and half hours stuck there, and Sujit didn't much to do other than taking pics.

It was a beach, and we were actually going to another beach for getting ourselves wet. I decided to check out the water. Ashique and Tushar soon followed suit, and we had a great time inside the water. Pintu and Murshid joined us for brief moments, but Sujit didn't even get near. We spent some of our best times of the tour here. The water was quite clear, and the waves were moderate and enjoyable.

After what seemed like forever in the water, the driver told us that the car was ready to go. We got aboard and resumed the journey towards Himchori, again. Soon we reached Himchori. My legs were not moving...spending so much time in the water was taking its toll. Feeling tired, I suggested we have a cup of tea.

There was a small market in the foot of the hill. We had tea in a small restaurant, and start climbing up. There were two viewables in that place. A really long stairway that leads to the top of the hill, and a spring.

We started climbing the stairway to heaven(?)

To be continued

p.s. Special credits to Toxic_Tears for the word "Straw Hut" :D

Children of The Sea 7: Drops from the Angel

Kolatoli beach is not a very well known tourist spot. It’s not a place where every tourist goes. In fact, I never even heard about this place before year 2004. None of my journey mates have heard about this place as well. However, I knew what I was doing, and we were slowing approaching the place.

The evening was calm and quiet. No place in Bangladesh is as crowded as Dhaka. Only a few other Rickshaws could be seen. There was no turmoil, no loud chattering, no cars, no stupid pedestrians—a completely peaceful environment.

So what’s so special about Kolatoli? It’s like any other beach of Coxsbazar, with the only exception being the “Angel Drop” restaurant. This is hanging restaurant, established way above the sea level. The foundation of the two storied building must be really strong, as strong waves continuously hit the columns on which the building stands. According to the owner, only a Tsunami will be able to break the columns! It’s been five years since the restaurant has been established, and it never got affected by waves.

We had to take a hanging mini-bridge to get inside. The kitchen as well as the order taking place is situated in the ground floor. Leaving the kitchen behind, we went forward and sat in some chairs and benches at the rear end of the ground floor.

After sitting in the chairs, we were confronted with a jaw dropping, awesome view of the sea. The moon was up, and the reflection on the waves was beyond description. When I first came here, I knew I could watch forever, and that feeling didn’t change a bit. Every wave had something new in it. Clichéd this may be, but I reassert, the sea never gets old, and one can never get bored of the sea.

Me, Pintu and Sujit sat there, while the others went off to a special mission. Before they left, we ordered dinner, and the guys informed us that it’d take at least an hour to get the meal prepared. We were happy, because we knew that the mission would take some time to accomplish. We ordered a Red Snapper, and two servings of Prawn Masala, with steamed rice and Sprite. We wanted fried rice, but it was not available. Red Snapper is a very tasty sea fish. I tried it before in Saltz at Dhaka, and I loved it. That one was not fresh, but I hoped that the coxsbazar one would be a bit fresher. The best thing about this fish is that it has very less amount of scales. So the tiresome process of dissecting scales from the meat is not there.

I was feeling a bit anxious and disturbed, because I knew that my cell phone could go off any moment. Since I found out about the absence of charger, I kept it turned off. But now, here in Angel Drop, I really needed the cell phone for coordinating the mission. That was when I received a call from April. She started what she almost always does..whining and complaining. This time it was some audacious behavior of her sister, and as a result, her not returning home at night. I tried to inject some sense in to her, but she refused to understand. After a while, seeing that the discussion is going nowhere and I am losing a lot of precious sea dances, I brought out the plea of charge exhaustion and hung up. Hehe…I kind of enjoy listening to people. Trust me; I do listen to people a lot. I am not always the talkative kind that many of my friends know.

At around 10, we were informed that food was ready, and will be served shortly. I called up Tushar and came to know that the mission was successful, and they are returning. But still it’d take at least 10 minutes for them to arrive. Fortunately, the food was served five minutes later, and Ashique, Tushar and Murshid joined us before we three finished the whole fish.

The food was excellent, and as I am writing this, I am getting hungry and I am also experiencing the tingling of saliva. Who knew that rice, cooked fish and tomato sauce could taste so great? The prawn item wasn’t that great, but I absolutely loved the red snapper.

After dinner, we spent some more time sitting and enjoying ourselves. We had a round of coffee before dinner. We again ordered coffee, which further inflated our food expenditure. We spent a lot of money that night, for satisfying our appetite. A lot…

At around 11 PM, we came out of the place. We wanted to stay more, but all of us were really tired from the journey. The guys bought cigarettes and we headed back towards the cottage.

The end of our first day at Coxsbazar was not far away…

To be continued

Sorry folks, no pics for this one! Sujit forgot to take his camera along, and that was the only one we had.

Children of The Sea 6: I Looked At You, You Looked At Me!

We were six grown ups, and more than half of us possesed a bigger than average physique. Yet we were all exhausted from the extremely hectic and tedious journey we had to bear with. Naturally, everyone wanted to get fresh. We were also really hungry. Eventually we went out looking for a place to eat. I really insisted that we should give the sea a visit then, but I, too agreed that water bathing in an empty stomach didn't sound like a great idea.

We went to a medium sized restaurant for food. The guys in there assured that lunch can be arranged within a short time. It was around 4:30, and Tom and Jerry was running and rampaging through the digestive system. I couldn't even remember when I last ate something! The menu was rice, vegetables, chicken chilli fry, fried hilsha fish, etc. We ordered the food, and decided to visit the nearby shops. There were 2/3 Barmese shops there. I brought a pair of sandles with me. Infact, I vested the entire responsibility of my precious feet upon that pair of Bata sandles--I had no shoes with me. But some of the others relied on shoes, and they wanted to get a pair of supposedly cheap Barmese sandles for rough using.

We entered a shop, but me and Ashique couldn't find a pair that could fit our huge feet (yeah, I opted for buying one, too!). The shopkeeper went to another store, and borrowed two pairs for us. We all liked the sandles, and then we started the purchasing process. Sadly, the price was too high, and according to Murshid, Barmese sandles could be bought in Dhaka at a much cheaper rate. So we returned to the food shop, hoping that we'll soon see the face of man's best friend, hot white rice.

Ashique and Ishtiaque Eagerly Waiting for Food!

But God had different plans for us. We spent a good half hour at the sandle's, but yet the food was nowhere to be seen. We waited patiently. 30 mins passed...40 mins passed....and when we were thinking about passing out in hunger, the food arrived. The chicken "jhaal" fry was literally jhaal, and we used a lot of drinking water.

After what seemed like forever, we finished eating. The day was long, and it was still sunny. Pintu was saying that we shouldn't go down to the water with a filled up stomach. I agreed, but only having unexpressed, different plans in mind.

Sujit and Tushar never touched the sea before...it was their first tour to any place near the oceans. I felt so envious of the duo. When I first visited the sea, I was a mere kid, and yet I can remember how excited I was to get myself wet for the first time (wet in sea, of course!).

And these were grown up guys, with all the poetry in mind, and all the romanticism in their eyes. Tushar even brought a copy of Shesher Kobita, which I already mentioned for being a source of pain for my bag. Someone suggested that we take a walk by the beach, and a devillish smile escaped me.

As soon as we reached a suitable location, I walked straight towards the water. Who cares about filled up stomach when you have the gorgeous foams just a foot away from you? I was dying to get in, and I did so.

The first contact with the sea

I always love it when the first wave hits me. When I was younger, my mom and dad took me to Coxsbazar twice. I don't have much memories from those trips, but the journey last yearwas really memorable. I stayed in Sea Gull hotel for two days, with all my GP sales and marketing colleagues, and I had an excellen time with my friends Shafayat and Shahriar, whom were also colleagues. During that journey, I discovered a marvelous place, which we (this group) visited later on.

Everytime you go down to the sea, you get a different feeling. No two wading experience can be compared. The sea is like a versatile firearm--it uses a new kind of ammunition every time it fires at you. Every wave felt differently. I watched and enjoyed the ecstacy of the others. It is indeed an incomparable feeling when the wave hits the body. During that time, the waves were not that strong, and the hits were gentle. It's like pouring water on the body from a mug, but the direction being horizontal, instead of vertical. This reminds me how I got rid of the horizontal versus vertical dilemma. When I was doing BBA coaching in Sunrise, these two words really bugged me. I was almost always confused with this. But I did knew that "Vertex" means the highest point of a pyramid/triangle. So how do you find the vertex? When you approach vertically. Haha...it's that easy. I can be a good teacher, can't I?

Speaking about teaching, I think someday I will become a teacher. But not now, maybe some other time, or in some other life. Let's get back to Coxsbazar instead.

So we spent almost 2 hours in the sea. When we got out of the sea, we weighted a lot more than what we usually do. It was due to the fact that our pant pockets and foldings got stuffed with sand. I tried to drive away the sand, but it refused to end! It was like I am taking out sand from a never ending supply of it.

There was a long nylon cord, attached to two trees outside Borsha 2. As soon as we got back, people started competing for bathroom space. From previous bitter experience, we unanimously decided that the womanly marathon bath of Tushar will be hosted last. One guy got in, came out, and hanged the deserted laundry in that cord. Soon the entire cord, which was supposed to be shared by two other cottages, got filled up with clothes from us.

After settling down, we decided to relax, and I decided to charge my mobile. I was still using the GP mobile and test GPRS handset (Nokia 3220) till then. But to my surprise, I found out that I forgot to bring the charger. I still can't forgive myself for leaving the charger on the table. I was 100% convinced that I inserted the charged inside the bag. Ashique had a Nokia charger with him, but we couldn't find a suitable plugging point for the three pinned charger. I had only one unit charge left.

We were pondering over a suitable place for having dinner, and both the cottage cafeteria and the one where we had our lunch was instantly rejected. The first one for the expense, and the second one for the dinosaur's walk like service. As i was there just a year before, I suggested a place which I am sure everyone would love. It isn't almost bad to have experience, which later proved to be deadly accurate.

We got aboard three rickshaws, with two of us on each, and started a peaceful journey at around 9 PM.

That was some day we spent....and who knew that there were still many more things to come.

To Be Continued....

Children of The Sea 5:Reaching Coxsbazar

After a while, we all got on board the train again. I can't remember the last time when I got so bored that I fell asleep. I heard one train zooming by, and I twisted my head around like a periscope. I thought our train would start now. But no, that didn't happen...so got back to sleep. Didn't bother when the 2nd one passed, got a bit alive, but got back to sleep again. Finally, when the 3rd train passed by, I was too tired to even look out of the window. But soon afterwards, the train started moving, and all hopes of reaching Coxsbazar got restored again.

The rest part of the journey towards Chittagong was exciting only because it was giving me the feeling of freedom--the very same feeling that Edmund Dante got when he escaped from Chateau D`if! Actually that feeling came to me when I finally got out of the train, in Chittagong station.

I liked the railstation. It was neat and clean. Not messy and dusty like Komolapur. There weren't too many people out there as well. We dumped the six of us within the confines of two CNGs. These vehicles took us to the place from where buses started their journey towards Coxsbazar.

The journey from Chittagong to Coxsbazar was turbulent, and somewhat boring. We stopped in a place situated in the heart of Chittagong city, where we went to a bhaater hotel for having our lunch. We had to make it really fast, cause the bus was waiting for us to get back in.

At around 11 AM, we got off the bus, very near to the famous Sea Gull hotel. It was like a De Ja Vu to me. I went there in 2004, with my GP colleagues. It all came back to me, and I got emotional for a while. I did have a lot of fun that time.

We were supposed to live in a small bungalow/cottage type house. There is a lodge (apparently owned by some IBA teacher) called “Palace Paradise”. When I came here last, these cottages were just established, and the cost of renting them was really high. The costs haven't changed that much, but we had the advantage of going there in an off-season time. Tushar’s brother in law had a good relationship with the manager of the place and hence we managed to get two rooms at Tk 900 per night.

The scenario was like this—we could either take two adjacent non air-conditioned rooms in the ground floor, or we could take one from ground floor and an air conditioned one from the top floor. We had a somewhat lengthy discussion regarding this among us. It was indeed a hot day. Our visit took place during the rainy season, which can be termed as a wet version of summer. It’s still hot, but it rains quite often. I thought it’d make things a bit disputing, if we take one AC room for 6 people. We will either end up having no sleep at all or three of us would remain unhappy. So I strongly pressed for taking the non-AC rooms. Also, the manager informed us that there’s chance that two adjacent AC rooms would be available the next day. Some of the tenants might leave, and then we could take the rooms.

So we checked in to the cottage called “Borsha 2”. It was not in the front portion of the whole area. The area was filled with more than 10 cottages, and it was accessible via a big gate boasting the name “Prashaad Paradise”. My personal opinion was that the place got a bit congested with so many cottages. It would have been a lot better if there were fewer cottages. Anyways, as soon as we entered the room, we were introduced to our shared caretaker. He was a jolly fellow, and he assured that he’ll be around so that we can contact him whenever we need anything. He, with a genuine look of sorrow informed us that the phones aren’t working.

I liked the adjacent rooms. In the first room, there was a large bed, a TV, a three seater sofa, and a sofa-table. On the other room, there was another large bed, a dressing table and a chest-o-drawer.

So we started unpacking our stuff, and we were just on the brink of starting our actual tour....

To be continued..